


There's Nothing I Wouldn't Do (I'll Always Find My Way Back to You)

by ainewrites, SETI_fan



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: AU, Bakery AU, College AU, F/F, Laundry day, Movie Night, Professor - Freeform, Roller Derby, Swiss Army Knife, happy holtzbert week!, just two dorks falling in love, salty parabolas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-11-29 22:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11450049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ainewrites/pseuds/ainewrites, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SETI_fan/pseuds/SETI_fan
Summary: A derby girl, a swiss army knife, a can of pringles, a bakery. All stories revolving around our favorite adorable scientist dorks who are madly in love, whether they admit it or not.-Happy Holtzbert week!





	1. Whip It

**Author's Note:**

> I was super excited to see this is one of the prompts, because I’ve actually wanted to try roller derby for the longest time. I love to skate, and I’ve been told by people that I should try out, but two things stop me: A) I’m not a big person, and I kind of think that if I joined a team with women ten to twenty years older than me, I’d be literally crushed, and B) I’m too much of a socially anxious introvert to actually go and try out. And I live like five minutes from the home base of our main roller derby league, too. 
> 
> WHY, BRAIN, MUST YOU GO ALL ANXIETY ON ME?
> 
> Plus, I also watched Whip It because I know it inspired the prompt, and I loved it. Why haven’t I watched it sooner is the real question. And I’m unashamedly using the characters from the movie because I’m horrible at puns.

She doesn’t know how Abby manages to find the picture, or even what she was looking for when she found the picture. Abby’s not really one to trawl the depths of the internet, and she’s not a sports person, either, so Erin thinks it must be some crazy chance, an accidental clicked link, that led to this.

She just knows is that in under ten seconds, Abby has Holtzmann, Patty, and Kevin crowded at her shoulder, all staring with undisguised glee at the screen. It’s Erin in the picture, that much is clear, but at the same time, it’s not.

She’s wearing a green vest and skirt that resemble a girl scout’s, green tights, and a green helmet, hair wild and tangled in her face. Thick, black eye liner rings her eyes, wrapping around the side of her head, and there’s an intense, concentrated look on her face, one arm tucked close to her body, the other reaching out, linking together with another woman in a similar outfit. The setting, the outfit, the make-up, it’s all unmistakable what she’s doing.

“You did roller derby?” Patty asks, equal parts shocked and delighted, and Erin cringes.

“Yes?”

“No way!” Holtzmann crows, leaning closer to the computer, peering at the fuzzy picture. She plops an elbow on Abby’s head as she does. Abby bats at her gently, twisting around in her seat.

“Erin! Why didn’t you ever tell us?” Abby asks, grinning, spinning on her chair, and all four sets of eyes land on her. Erin hesitates.

“Because it was before I made up with you?” She finally says, although her voice pitches at the end like it’s a question.

Holtz’s grin grows even wider. “So, Erin,” she drawls, “I understand that derby girls have nicknames.”

“Yeah?” Erin doesn’t really like where this is going.

“What was yours?”

“Maggie Mayhem,” she mutters, cheeks flaring red. Holtz laughs in delighted surprise.

“Oh my god, yes!” She slings her arm around Erin, making her flinch. “That’s awesome!”

“Girl, I didn’t know I had it in you,” Patty says, hints of admiration in her voice. “Roller derby looks like a rough sport.”

“Erin! Why’d you stop?” Abby asks, “This site says you and your team won the league championship every year you were with them! Apparently, you were one of the best blockers they’d ever seen.” She frowns a little, scrolling down. “Blocker?” She mutters, clearly not recognizing the term, and Erin doesn’t really want to give her an explanation right now.

Holtz digs her elbow gently into Erin’s side. “So, _Maggie_ , can you teach me how to skate?” She spins around, pulling Erin with her. “I never actually learned, and hey, now I have a best friend who’s a total pro.”

Erin untangles herself, heart beating (out of embarrassment?), skin tingling where Holtz’s fingers had been closed around her arm. “That was in the past. It’s not a part of my life anymore.”

“But-“

“No!” Erin snaps, and everyone leans back, looking startled at the force of the word. Erin looks away, guilt rising, but the thought of roller derby, of returning to it, sends a panicky feeling through her chest. She practically flees the rooming, taking the stairs two at a time.

But, beneath the panic, there’s the sense of longing, and she tries her hardest to tamp it down.

-

Once Holtzmann gets an idea in her head, she’s like a dog with a bone. She’s not going to let it go, not until she gets what she wants. And so, over the span of a week, she badgers Erin at every opportunity, until Erin finally gets so frustrated that she agrees to take Holtz to a rink (“Once. I’ll take you _once_ ”).

But, now that she’s hear, she’s regretting it. Stepping inside the rink is like stepping into her second home, and the familiarity of the setting washes over her. Horrible carpet, horrible pounding music, the smell of disinfectant, and the weight of her skates in her hand. She hasn’t touched those skates in over a year, and she holds them tightly, hands shaking.

Holtz bounces beside her, wide-eyed and excited, glasses perched on her nose. The neon lights of the arcade flicker off her teeth when she grins, and something in Erin’s chest flutters a little, and the flutter gets harder when Holtz links her arm with hers, practically dragging her to the front desk.

Erin had purposely chosen the time when the rink would be emptiest. Open skate, mid-afternoon, before school gets out but after lunch breaks, so there’s no line, but she almost regrets that choice when she sees a familiar face behind the glass. She has no time to prepare, no time to wrap her mind around it.

“Maggie!”

“Hey, Johnny,” Erin says, awkwardly, and the man behind the counter leans forward, excited. “Don’t tell me you’re getting back in the game!”

“No. I just agreed to teach my friend how to skate.”

Holtzmann leans across the counter, offering her hand. “Jillian Holtzmann.”

Johnny looks very much like he wants to say something, so Erin hurriedly cuts in front of Holtz, fumbling in her pocket for the folded dollar bills. But when she pulls them out, Johnny waves them away.

“Maggie, you and your friends have free entrance into this rink for life.” He passes a neon pink ticket to Holtz, who takes it, looking between him and a clearly uncomfortable Erin in delight. Before he can say anything else, Erin herds Holtz away, toward the skate rental counter.

“So, Maggie,” Holtz drawls, taking a pair of skates from a bored looking teenager behind the counter. “Old friend?”

“No, he...well, he’s our announcer. Or was. I don’t know if he still is.” Erin sits down on a bench. She stares at the skates in her hands for a second, before pulling off her shoes. Her hands shake as she knots the laces. She stands, letting the feeling of being on eight wheels familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time.

Holtz is only halfway through lacing up on skate, but suddenly there’s an itch in Erin, and Holtz grins at Erin.

“Go. I’ll wave at you when I’m ready,” she says, cheerfully, and Erin protests even as she steps onto the rink. It’s pretty much deserted, like Erin knew it would be. There are only a couple of people; a few moms and their young children, a teenager probably skipping school, an older man on roller blades.

She pushes away from the wall. For a moment, she worries that she won’t be able to do this anymore. That roller skating isn’t like riding a bike, and you once you learn, you can forget. But then, she’s moving, muscles working in nearly forgotten ways, and she smoothly glides into the middle of the rink.

Erin feels naked without the elbow and knee pads, without the wrist guards, without her helmet. But she crouches down, heart pounding in time with the music. She exhales, softly, sliding smoothly into a pose, knees bent. And then, she’s off.

And she’s _flying_.

She’s forgotten how good this feels, and she loops the track, leaning low, skates an extension of her body, rounding corners, dodging the other skaters who look at her with a mix of panic and admiration. Somewhere in the background Holtzmann whoops, clapping, and she grins, going faster. She hears Johnny yell her name. But not her name. 

He yells _Maggie_ , cheering, clapping, and suddenly everything crashes back down onto Erin, and she slows, panting, heart beating, adrenaline coursing through her veins, heart pounding. She comes down from her high quickly and brutally, and skates over to Holtz, who’s managed to shuffle herself from the bench to the rink, and she clings to the barrier as she grins at Erin.

“Show me your ways, oh former derby girl,” Holtz says, and Erin takes her hands, pulling her out onto further out onto the rink.

She lets the thoughts of teaching Holtzmann push away the joy of the speed (“Holtz! Stop trying to walk in your skates!”), and it’s easier to do than she expected, because Holtz is _awfu_ l.

She can’t ignore the way her heart sings, though, at the faintest hints of speed. And, maybe, that’s why when they leave, and Holtz looks at Erin and asks if she wants to do this again, Erin says yes.

-

Holtzmann does not take easily to skating. She’s about as graceful as a baby giraffe, stumbling and falling her way around the track, laughing the entire time. She turns too sharply and crosses her skates and hits the barrier and can’t figure out how to stop once she gets up to something resembling a decent speed, and while she practices, Erin can’t help but try to attempt all her old moves.

And she does. The first time Holtz watches her easily spin around and loop the rink backwards she cheers, clapping, and Erin flushes pink and delighted, a warmth growing in her chest from what she tells herself is only from the skating. At the beginning, her muscles scream in pain after every session, because she pushes herself _hard_ , but, slowly, she gets used to it again. She loops the rink, bent low, dodging imaginary obstacles, moving on her skates as if she’d never stopped.

Then, one day, Holtz asks her why she stopped, and Erin freezes.

It’d been a glorious day. The rink had been empty except for the two of them, and Erin had gone all out, at speeds that took her breath away, letting herself pretend, for the briefest of minutes that she had never stopped, that she was still the star blocker. She lets herself fall into the familiar personality of Maggie Mayhem, and she basks in every minute of it.

But then, Holtz asks, and the fantasy falls away.

Holtzmann must see the look on her face, because she reaches for Erin’s hand. They’re taking a break, sitting on the bench, thighs touching (skin tingling where Holtz’s thigh touches hers). “Look, Er, if you don’t want to talk…”

“No, it’s fine.” Erin twists her water bottle between her hands. “It’s just…it’s not something I really talked about ever, y’know? It was like my secret identity.”

“Erin by day, roller derby superhero Maggie Mayhem by night sort of thing?” Holtz asks, only half teasingly. She reclines backward until her feet hit the wall, stretching out her legs in front of her.

Erin looks at her lap. “Yeah. I guess so.” She laughs, humorlessly. “I tried out on a whim. I hadn’t been skating since I was a kid, y’know? But I loved it and I caught the attention of one of the coaches, and suddenly I was one of the Hurl Scouts.”

“The Hurl Scouts?” Holtz asks, grinning. She had instantly adored the fact that the names of the teams and players were almost always puns playing off the brutal aspect of the sport, and Erin smiles at her smile.

“Yeah. I mean, it was kind of a breath of fresh air for me. By day, Professor Erin Gilbert, uptight physics teacher at Colombia, by night, Maggie Mayhem. Brutal, badass, fearless.”

“And _sexy_ ,” Holtz adds, waggling her eyebrows. “I’ve seen pictures of those uniforms, Gilbert.”

Erin laughs, as her cheeks flush. “Yeah. I guess so.” She looks down at her hands, which she clasps in her lap. “And I mean, we were amazing. I loved it so much. But then I started dating Phil, and he hated that I did this, and I was so desperate for romance. And I think that might not have been enough to make me stop, but then I was up for tenure, and I just…I panicked. And I fled. I didn’t show up for our championship, and we lost, and I just…couldn’t go back. Because they must hate me now. I blew it. They were my only friends in a long time, but the thought of facing them…” she makes a gesture at her chest, and Holtzmann seems to understand.

“And now it’s been almost a year and a half.”

“Er.” Holtzmann suddenly grabs Erin’s face between her hands, and Erin’s breath hitches (she tells herself it’s out of surprise, not from how close her and Holtz’s faces are). “I’ve been skating with you every other day for almost a month now. And I can see how much you love it. I mean, you have a huge fan sitting over there.”

She makes a gesture in the general direction of the front desk and Johnny, nearly whacking Erin in the nose. “I think, maybe, you should go back and see them. See your old team.”

“I can’t,” Erin says, and stands up. She offers her hands to Holtz, pulling her back to her feet. “Come on. I’m going to teach you how to turn around without falling.”

-

Erin sits, cross-legged on her bed, a computer screen open in front of her. The YouTube video plays, and she watches as the Hurl Scouts, as her team, wins a bout, and she’s right in front, cheering and bouncing dancing as best she can on her skates.

At her side, are posters. Some of them feature her, on the rink, the same poster that Abby found a few weeks ago. She knows, that, somewhere in the darkest depths of her closest, her old equipment sits, unused. The thought causes a pang in her chest.

She closes the laptop screen with a groan, burying her face in her hands. She misses this, she does, she really, really does, but the thought of going back causes a knot of anxiety to twist in her chest.

-

Once day, she’s pulled aside by Johnny as she and Holtz leave. Holtz tells her that she’ll wait in the car and slips away.

“Maggie,” Johnny starts, and Erin just looks at them, clutching her duffle bag tighter. He hesitates for a second before saying, “Tryouts are next week. The Hurl Scouts need a new member.”

“Johnny, I can’t,” Erin says, automatically, but Johnny shakes his head and pushes a flyer into her hands. “Just consider it, Maggie. They miss you. We all miss you.” He walks away before she can answer, and she looks at the flyer in her palm.

She walks to car in a daze. Holtz is wearing just her socks (mismatched, of course), her feet propped on the dashboard. She raises an eyebrow as Erin slides into the car, plucking the flyer out of Erin’s palm.

“Tryouts? Erin!” She twists in her seat to grin at the physicist. “You should totally go!”

“But…” Erin says, and she feels tears gathering in her throat. “What if they don’t want me?”

Holtzmann clambers over so she’s practically sitting in Erin’s lap, and heat floods Erin’s stomach. Erin gasps, her breaths growing slightly uneven as Holtz straddles her thighs, pinning her to the seat.

“Erin, you need to do this!” Holtz waves the flyer inches from Erin’s face. “You _love_ this! I can see it in your eyes! You miss it!”

“But…”

“Erin, you’re a ghostbuster! You ain’t afraid of any ghosts, remember? So don’t be afraid of this.” She pushes the flier into Erin’s chest. “I swear, Erin, if you don’t go next week, I’m going to come to your apartment and drag you there kicking and screaming.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Holtzmann looks mildly surprised. “Huh. I was expecting more of a fight.” She settles back, onto Erin’s knees.

Erin takes a deep breath. “Okay. But…will you come with me?”

Holtzmann grins. “Did you even have to ask?”

-

Erin can feel the flittering of panic in her chest, and she stops, staring at the entrance to the locker rooms. Woman crowd the halls, clutching skates and helmets and safety gear, all chattering loudly. She sees some people she recognizes from other teams, and they give her curious (and sometimes hostile) stares, but really, her only focus is on the name on the door in front of her.

_Hurl Scouts_.

A hand sliding into hers makes Erin jump, and Holtz looks up at her. “Ready, Er?”

“No,” Erin squeaks, but pushes open the door.

The noise hits her immediately. The good-natured bickering of woman easy and familiar with each other, loud and cheerful, although it dies slowly, and they all turn and look at her.

“Um,” Erin says, her breath catching in her throat. “Hi, guys.”

“Maggie?” Someone says, and Erin doesn’t quite recognize the emotion in her voice. They stand, slowly, and Erin flinches, expecting anger, yelling, fury. Because she left them. She left them like she left Abby, with no warning, no goodbyes. She just _vanished_ , and that would make anyone furious.

But instead, she pulled into a hug so tight that her ribs crack, and there are people pounding on her back, and they sound _happy_. Happy to see _her_. And she hugs them back, tightly, the people who were her family for the two, glorious seasons she was with them.

Finally, they break away, and a woman casts a curious look at Holtz. “Who’s your friend, Maggie?” She asks, casually, and Holtz bounds forward.

“Jillian Holtzmann, queer nuclear engineer, Ghostbuster, and world’s most awful skater.” She wraps an arm around Erin’s waist, grinning. “Who’re your friends, Er?”

Erin laughs. “This Bloody Holly…”

The tall, curly-haired blonde woman waves.

“Smashley Simpson…”

The woman with the rainbow-dyed strips of blonde hair and a bandage on her noise grins, wrapping an arm around Erin’s shoulders, squeezing tight.

“Babe Ruthless…”

The youngest of the group, a small girl with dark hair, smiles and flutters her fingers in a wave.

“Rosa Sparks…”

The woman leaning against the lockers salutes, grinning. Holtz salutes her back, her smile equally wide.

“And the Manson Sisters.”

The two women both wave.

“Maggie, are you coming back to us?” Smashley asks, her grip on Erin’s shoulder almost painfully tight. Erin glances around the locker room.

“You mean…I can?”

“Of course!” Smashley says, cheerfully. “I mean, we were pissed off for a while- I think I remember threatening to hunt you down and beat you up, but that was vetoed -but we figured you had a good reason.” She pats Erin’s arm. “You love this.”

Holtzmann shoots Erin a look that clearly says _told you so_. Erin glares at her out of the corner of her eye, which transfers Smashley’s attention onto Holtz.

“You, tiny blonde person, are you trying out?”

Holtz shakes her head. “Nah. I’m no good on skates, as _Maggie_ here would attest.” She pats Erin’s arm, mirroring the other woman. “I’m her cheerleader.”

Holly smiles, elbowing Smashley aside so she can wrap her arm around Erin’s shoulder. “Just her cheerleader?” She asks suggestively, and Erin can feel her cheeks turn bright red. Holtz shakes her head, mock-pouting. “Naw. Just friends.” She reaches up and pinches Erin’s cheek (Erin scowls and flaps at her until Holtz lets go), “Wouldn’t mind dating her, though, because she’s pretty adorable.”

The women _aww_ , and Erin ducks her head, an odd, but not uncomfortable heat stirring low her in belly. A heat that Holtzmann seems to trigger a lot. Rosa, already on her skates, spins around Erin.

“Does this mean you broke up with the Douchebag?” She asks, and when Erin nods, everyone cheers, and there’s more shoulder pounding happening. And quite a decent amount of insults hurled at Phil in utter delight. Then, there’s a flurry of movement as people pull on skates and guards and helmets, chattering the entire time.

Smashley pulls Erin toward her when she gets the chance. “Come on, Maggie. Let’s get you geared up. We have a coach to shock.”

-

She got three months. Three months of training to get back into roller derby shape, to refresh her memory, to let her muscles fall back into old patterns. And even with the bruises and the aches and pain, she relishes every second.

And now, the crowd cheers. Somewhere in the crowd she knows Abby and Patty and Holtz stand, hollering their heads off, and she scans the crowd, searching for them. She settles on a familiar head of blonde hair, the smaller woman using Patty and Abby to haul herself above the crowd, waving a sign above her head.

WE LOVE MAGGIE MAYHEM.

Erin’s heart skips a beat as she slides into place, shoulder to shoulder with her fellow teammates. The whistle blows.

And they’re off.

-

The roar of the crowd echoes in her ears, the thud of skates against the hard floor still reverberating through her, and she’s laughing. Someone’s pounding her back and someone else is crushing her in a hug, and she’s jumping as best she can in a the tight ball of people.

Because she’s back. Adrenaline and the aftermath of speed sings through her veins, intoxicating. But it’s nothing to what she feels when Holtz is there, smiling, launching herself at Erin.

“Erin!” The engineer hugs her with as much force as her teammates, nearly lifting her off her feet, even though with her skates on she’s almost a foot taller than Holtzmann. “You kicked ass!” She smacks Erin’s hand in a high five, laughing, when someone jostles into her from behind, and they’re pushed together, stumbling, and Erin’s skates slide out from under her. She hits the ground hard, tailbone crying out in pain, and she grabs at Holtz as she falls in an attempt to steady herself. Instead, she pulls Holtz off balance too, Holtz falls on top of her, knocking the air from her lungs.

They’re so close. And if the aftermath of a bout is intoxicating, this…this, this closeness to Holtzmann, that sets her heart pounding, her blood aflame, this is addicting, and she never, ever wants it to stop.

Later, Erin isn’t sure who kisses who first. She just knows that they’re on the floor of a grimy locker room, and they’re kissing, and it’s like she’s breathing for the first time in months, because as much as she may have tried to hide it or pass it off as something else, she’s had the hugest of crushes on Holtzmann for months.

And now, brain still loopy with the rush of speed, everything on and firing, she kisses her, and Holtzmann kisses her back.

And everything’s pretty much perfect.

-

She’s teased, of course, when they’re found five minutes later and Erin is hauled to her feet. Holtzmann grabs her hand, holding her fingers tight, and they grin at each other, even as Patty and Abby heckle them, both clearly thrilled for their friends.

Holtzmann blames Erin’s costume. Erin just smiles, and kisses her again.


	2. One, Two, Three, Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Two: Swiss Army Knife

One.

-

She gets them out into the alley as soon as possible. Her testing ground, as she calls it, because there’s nothing really that big that she could break back here. And yes, one time she did set the dumpster on fire, but that was an accident and who fills a dumpster with newspapers, anyways? Everyone knows that goes into recycling.

“We gotta be prepared, and that is why I’ve made a table of treats.” She makes a broad gesture at the table she dragged out into the alley, and turns.

“Erin, you’ve have a hard day. Step right up, pick a gun, any gun.”

Erin smiles, and Holtz can see the excitement behind it, the eager gleam in her eyes, and it causes a warmth in her chest. Her delight only grows when Erin reaches for the unfinished proton gun, which she had set out in the exact hopes that she would reach for it.

“Nooo!”

Erin startles, dropping the gun back onto the table, and Holtz tries to put a bit of sheepishness into her voice. She probably fails.

“I’m sorry, not that gun.” Across from them, Patty’s shaking her head. “It’s not ready. It’s yours when it is.”

She’d originally planned on giving Erin the grenades, just the grenades, but Erin’s looking disappointed, and Holtz really doesn’t want Erin to look disappointed. So she reaches into her pocket, curling her fingers around the cool, plastic exterior of her knife, and pulls it out.

“Here, in the meantime…take this.” She presents it to Erin with both hands, like an offering, and Erin plucks it from her fingers, examining it with a look of curious excitement.

“Wow! What does it do?” Erin asks, turning it over in her fingers (her long, slender, perfect fingers), and Holtz’s brain stutters for a second, and she pauses for a fraction of a second before replying.

“It’s a swiss army knife,” Holtz says, leaning back onto the table with one elbow. “No woman should walk around unarmed.” She watches Erin’s face closely, and she’s not sure what she’s looking for, exactly, only that the faintest traces of irritation that shows is somehow disappointing to her.

“Thanks. I know what it does.” But she still drops it into her pocket.

“Also, here.” Holtzmann scoops up a grenade, plops it into Erin’s hand. She doesn’t want Erin to be frustrated, however slightly. “Take this, give that a toss. That’s going to send up a little poof, it’s only dangerous to ghosts.”

Erin does, aiming for the bullseye-slash-ghost Holtz had set up at the end of the alley. She overshoots, and it lands in a dumpster. Red lightning bolts of electricity shoot up, and they all scramble backward, papers flying up from the dumpster at the end of the alley. Holtz laughs.

“Yeah, my mistake, it was a medium poof.”

She moves on quickly, presenting Patty with the ghost chipper and Abby with the proton glove, but through the entire time, she can’t help but sneak glances over at Erin.

She’s not quite sure what caused her to give Erin her swiss army knife, but she doesn’t have the time to dwell on it now.

-

Two.

-

She has way too much fun exploding the giant ghost balloons. Yes, it’s somewhat terrifying to have things ten stories tall reaching for you, but Holtzmann cackles the entire time, enjoying the rush of adrenaline each pop brings her.

And, yes, being squished on the demonic relative of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (she’s never eating those marshmallows again, no matter how much she loves them) sucks, and her elbow hurts where she landed on it while throwing herself to the ground so she wouldn’t be hit in the face.

But the actual explosions were fun. She’s sorry Erin missed it.

“Oh lord have mercy, this is just WRONG!”

Patty’s voice is muffled, and so is Abby’s, a second later.

“I can’t move my arms! I can’t reach the trigger!”

Holtz’s entire face is pressed against the pavement, concrete digging into her cheek like tiny, sharp needles. The edges of her proton pack are digging uncomfortably into her back, and it’s getting hard to breathe. But she’s _mostly_ joking when she says, “You guys! This is exactly how I pictured my death!”

It’s not, she always figured she’d go out in a lab accident, preferably an explosion- blaze of glory and all that -but there’s the uncomfortable stirrings of terror deep in her stomach, so she does what she knows. She jokes. Neither Abby or Patty laugh, and that only causes the feeling to grow. She’s going to die, suffocating under a giant, evil balloon. Just great.

But then there’s a squeaky wheeze, and a loud pop, and the pressure is gone from her back, and there’s a bit of plastic-y white cloth in her face. She rolls onto her knees, and looks up to see Erin striding over, proton gun braced on her shoulder, looking for all the world a badass, and Holtzmann feels the stirring of a liquid heat in her core. The feeling only intensifies when Erin speaks, the tiniest of satisfied smirks on her face.

“A proton gun is all well and good, but sometimes, you need the swiss army knife.”

Abby laughs, once, in relief, and Holtzmann wants to run to Erin, to hug her tightly, wants to do more than hug, and she doesn’t know how to deal with these feelings right now, knows it’s not a good time, so she panics a little bit.

“WELCOME BACK,” She shouts over the ringing in her ears. “AM I SHOUTING?”

“Yeah,” Erin says with a wince.

“I THINK THE BALLOON POPPED MY EAR.” She’s saying this at a much, much higher volume than she needs to, but it gives her a second to take a breath, gives her a joking air, and Erin smiles at her.

There’s another feeling; a fluttering behind her ribcage, a strange jump, like her heart missed a beat. Not painful, not uncomfortable, just strange and unfamiliar and warm. She doesn’t know what to do with it, so she pushes it down and back and tries to forget about it. She claps Erin on the shoulder, once, before they take off, and when Erin smiles at her, it takes all her strength not to grab her and kiss her.

And this feeling scares her.

-

Three.

-

“Holtzmann?”

Erin’s voice is hesitant, and Holtz doesn’t look up. There’s a hollow pit in her stomach, and it only grows when Erin speaks.

“Look, Erin, I get it.” It feels as if her entire being is shaking, but her hands are still as always, and she focuses on the single, tiny red wire as if her life depends on it. “I saw things that weren’t there. You made that very clear.”

“Holtz, please.” Erin’s voice is choked, and that makes Holtz angry. She has no right to be upset. She’s the one that caused this. She’s the one that told Rebecca she was dating _Kevin_ , because apparently dating a Labrador in a man’s body is a better alternative than dating Holtzmann. Holtz whirls, spinning her chair around to face Erin.

Erin’s face is red, the skin under her eyes swollen, and she’s twisting her hands together. She’s not meeting Holtz’s eyes.

“Abby yelled at me,” She admits, and Holtz vaguely remembers the sounds of raised voices coming from the floor below about an hour earlier. “She said that you’d been flirting with me since we met, and that you never do that if that person doesn’t flirt back, and that this was your way of asking me out.”

Holtz nods, once, a slow dip of her chin. Not a confirmation, just a way of saying go on.

Erin exhales, sharply. “And I started thinking back about everything. About how we met and how you introduced yourself, and about how you teased me and all the times you flirted and I just thought you liked flirting, about giving me the weapons you’re most excited about and you giving me your swiss army knife…”

“You still have that?” Holtz asks, surprise cutting through her anger. She thought it would have been lost ages ago, or dropped after it was used to pop the balloon.

“Of course I do,” Erin says, looking shocked that Holtz is even asking. “I mean, you gave it to me.” She makes a small gesture with her hand, the drumming of her fingers gently against the air. A nervous tic, Holtz realizes. She’s seen Erin do it before, of course, but it hasn’t occurred to her until now what it actually is.

Erin finally, finally meets Holtz’s eyes. “And I just…I was thinking…I’m not great at relationships, y’know? I mean, Phil…” she makes a scoffing sound. “I don’t know why I even started dating him, other than the fact that he was there. And it wasn’t a good choice, y’know? Because he was awful and I really wish I had never even said yes to that first date. But I’m getting slightly off track.” She steps a bit closer to Holtzmann, and Holtz’s heart, her traitor heart, speeds up.

“I think I may like you a little bit, too,” Erin says, softly, and waits.

Holtz is hit by a flurry of emotions all at once. Anger, first and strongest, and then confusion and then a strange giddiness then, oddly, relief. Because she _knows_ , now. She suspected, yes, but now she’s sure.

“I know, I have awful timing,” Erin says quickly, already backing up. “I mean, I just said I was dating Kevin, but you should know I kicked myself as soon as it left my mouth. And that doesn’t make it better, I just-oof!”

Holtzmann surges forward, and Erin makes a surprised sound at the first press of Holtz’s lips against her own. But then, she’s kissing back, and her lips taste of peppermint Chapstick and her tongue is in Holtz’s mouth and her hands are up, tangling in Holtz’s hair.

“I’m still furious at you, you should know that,” Holtz says, between kisses, gasping a little when Erin’s teeth scrape against her bottom lip. “I’ll yell at you later.”

“Only later?” Erin asks, leaning into Holtzmann’s embrace.

“Right now, I just want to be kissing you.”

“Took you long enough.”

“Asshole,” Holtz says, although she’s laughing. Erin pulls back just enough to grin.

“I know.”

-

Four

-

The knife had broken. Holtzmann knew Erin feels absolutely horrible about it, no matter how much she tries to convince her that really, it’s fine, that the knife was cheap and wasn’t going to last forever. And, after all, it broke in the most heroic way possible; Erin using it to open a stubborn bag of chips. It died to give them delicious, salty sustenance, and Holtzmann is totally fine with that.

Erin still feels awful.

“You gave it to me, Holtz!” She’d said, holding the plastic body of the knife in one hand and the popped-out blade in the other. “And I broke it! Opening _chips_.”

Holtzmann had kissed her and promised to get her something better. Erin had still looked guilty.

And Holtzmann had got her something better. Which is what leads to her leaning in what she hopes is a casual manner against Erin’s desk, tapping a box wrapped in snowman paper (yes, it was April, but she couldn’t find anything else) against the palm of her hand. Behind her, there’s a rustling from the direction of Erin’s four, gigantic whiteboards, and Holtzmann turns and glares.

Abby’s head pops out from behind one. “Holtz, I don’t get why we need to hide.”

“Because all three of us waiting up here for Erin would be suspicious!”

Patty appears next to Abby. “Why don’t we wait on the stairs or something?”

“Because it’s too far away.” There are footsteps on the stairs, and Holtzmann shoos her two friends back into hiding. Then she launches herself back at the desk, knocking over an entire row of cups holding pens and paperclips and markers in the process with a loud clatter. Erin appears just as Holtzmann is frantically trying to shovel them back into the cup. A plastic bag bearing the logo of a neighborhood deli dangles from her hand. She drops it on her desk to help Holtzmann sort office supplies back into their respective containers.

“Have you seen Abby or Patty?” She asks, dropping a handful of highlighters into a coffee mug. “I asked Kevin, but all he said was they had gone upwards.”

“Nope!” Holtzmann says, in what she hopes is a casual manner, although her voice and smile is probably a little too sunny because Erin looks at her in confusion. Holtzmann leans back against the desk, and presents the wrapped box to Erin.

“Happy April Christmas!”

Erin takes the box from Holtzmann, still looking kind of confused, even though there’s a little smile on her face. “Thanks?”

She carefully pulls the wrapping paper away from the box, and lifts the lid. She smiles, pulling out a new swiss army knife. She runs her finger over her name, engraved in the heavy metal body. “Holtz, you didn’t have to do this.” She goes to set the box aside, but Holtzmann yelps and lunges for it.

“Wait!”

Erin jumps, startled, and knocks the box off the table. Holtzmann hears the clatter as it hits the floor. She drops to her knees, scanning the grimy floor for a glint of silver.

“Holtzmann, what…”

Holtzmann sees it, and with a gasp of relief snatches it up. She turns to Erin, still on her knees. “There was something else in the box.” And, because she’s already on her knees anyway, holds up the engagement ring with both hands like an offering, and, grinning, asks, “Erin Gilbert, will you be my swiss army _wife_?”

Erin chokes, dropping to her knees in front of Holtzmann. “Oh my god, Holtz…yes! Of course!”

There’s cheering, and Patty and Abby bust out from behind the whiteboards, each throwing a handful of confetti, like Holtzmann requested they do. Erin is laughing- or possibly crying, it’s hard to tell, because Holtz maaaaay be laugh-crying, too -and slides the ring onto her finger.

“Took you two dorks long enough,” Patty says, smiling, wrapping an arm around Abby’s shoulders. Abby is full-on crying in happiness.

“I know this is probably an awful thing to say,” Erin says as she climbs up, pulling Holtzmann up, off the floor with her. “But if all it took was breaking your swiss army knife to get you to propose, I probably would have done it a lot sooner.”

Holtzmann kisses her in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The swiss army wife thing at the end came from a post that was circulating Tumblr a few weeks ago; originally it was only going to be the first three sections, but then I saw the joke and I knew I had to add it. And, no matter how hard I try, I can't find that freaking post ANYWHERE, so I can't link to it, but I'll just say on the very unlikely offchance that the original poster is reading this: thank you! I'm sorry I can't link to the post!


	3. Soft and Messy and Perfect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Three: Movie Night

It was Abby’s idea to start the Monday Movie Night. When it had been just her and Holtzmann at Higgins, every Monday they had set up a projector and watched a movie. She’d missed it, they both had, so it’s now become a tradition at the firehouse, too. They make popcorn and eat junk food and squish onto the couch in piles of blankets and pillows.

And, yes, admittedly they probably should be doing this on Saturdays, instead, because then they have the next day off, because often it turns into a Movie Night Marathon. Like the time they watched the entire first season of Stranger Things. Or watched Captain America: The First Avenger, and transitioned right into The Avengers, then The Winter Soldier, and made it about halfway through Age of Ultron before they all fell asleep. Or the Monday where they watched every single Star Wars movie. Or, at least, Abby and Holtzmann did. Erin and Patty bowed out before the prequals. Erin came back to watch The Force Awakens and Rogue One, and Patty just didn’t come back. It had taken them almost twenty hours, and Abby and Holtz had promptly passed out and didn’t wake up until Wednesday morning.

It’s Holtzmann’s turn to choose the movie, tonight, which makes Erin a little bit nervous. Holtzmann has chosen everything from raunchy rom-coms that are vastly uncomfortable to watch with other people to horror movies so gory they make Erin’s stomach churn to obscure History Channel documentaries.

Erin glances over to the couch from where she’s standing next to the counter waiting for the microwave to beep, the third and final bag of popcorn almost ready to empty into the already almost full bowl. The coffee table in front of the tv is littered with snacks; chips and bowls of candy and glasses of soda that may or may not have alcohol mixed into them and a plate of cookies. Abby’s on the couch already, sitting cross-legged in pajama pants and her “curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal” shirt. Patty is at the table a few feet away from Erin, also in pajamas, head bowed as she scrolls through her phone.

Holtz is nowhere to be seen.

The microwave beeps, and Erin empties the bag into the bowl. She pauses only to take another, small bowl from the fridge and heads over to Abby, balancing one in each hand. She places the popcorn bowl on the table and keeps the other one in her lap. Patty wanders over, too, sitting down next to Erin, and Erin feels a surge of disappointment, which is stupid, because Patty’s her friend, like Holtz is, and why would Erin rather Holtz sit next to her on this couch, anyways?

Finally, Holtz appears. She grins and stands in front of the TV in a Wonder Woman pose, one hand planted firmly on a hip, the other holding something behind her back.

“I so declare this week’s movie to be…Zootopia!” She says, grandly, and the proclamation is instantly met by sighs of relief. She tilts her head, amused. “Do you guys have so little faith in my movie choosing abilities?”

“Holtzy, the last three movies you picked where Sharknado, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and a documentary about lighthouses,” Patty says, ticking them off on her fingers. “I love documentaries, don’t get me wrong, but I have never been so bored.”

Abby nods. “I thought that I would never find a movie that freaked me out as much as Jaws. You proved that thought wrong. Now whenever I hear anything that sounds even remotely like a chainsaw I just about jump out of my skin.”

Erin raises a hand. “I don’t even know how someone came up with the idea of Sharknado, or why people thought making it was a good idea.”

Holtz scoffs. “My taste in movies is _awesome_.” She switches the movie on, and rushes the couch. But, instead of taking the spot between Patty and the arm of the couch, she plops across their laps, feet in Patty’s lap and head in Abby’s. Both Abby and Patty grumble, but Erin doesn’t. Her skin grows warm and tingly wherever Holtz touches, and the feeling only intensifies when Holtz catches her eyes and smiles.

“Here,” Erin says, plopping the bowl in her hands down on Holtz’s stomach. Holtz straightens up to look in it, and as she does she digs her elbow into Abby’s thigh, making the other woman grumble in pain.

“Erin!” Holtzmann gasps in delight. “Is this cookie dough?” She uses her fingers to scoop a hunk of it into her mouth, and grins at Erin around the mass of dough. Erin smiles back, the space behind her ribcage going molten. Then she catches Abby’s eye, who raises an eyebrow knowingly, and for some reason, Erin’s cheeks heat. She clears her throat, and focuses on the movie.

Or, she tries to. It’s harder than she expected, Holtz’s warm weight in her lap distracting in a strange way.

-

When the movie ends, Holtzmann rolls off their laps, landing with a thud on the floor, the blankets piling on top of her. Erin stretches, hissing at the painful tingling in her legs from where circulation was cut off. Patty yawns and stretches next to her, her spine making a popping sound.

“I’d love to stick around, but I’m beat. I’ll see y’all tomorrow.”

“Aw, Pattycakes!” Holtz whines from her place on the floor. “Stay.”

“I’m going to head out, too,” Abby says apologetically, stepping around the engineer’s head. “That bust today killed me.”

Erin nods. She’s felt the buzz of tiredness behind her eyes for the last hour, and the thought of her bed calls to her. But then, Holtz sits up, and gives a mock pout.

“Everyone is leaving me!” She spins around, rests her chin on Erin’s knee. “Erin! Er! Er-Bear! Stay with me. Watch more Disney movies, eat more candy.” She makes her eyes big and pleading, and Erin opens her mouth, closes it. Patty and Abby are watching in amusement as Erin has an internal battle with herself.

Holtzmann, apparently sensing this, smiles, her dimples flashing, and _oh my god why is her heart speeding up_?

“Okay,” Erin says, and Holtz whoops, springing to her feet and pumping her fist.

“YES! Sorry Abby, Patty, but Erin’s my new favorite!” She gives Erin a dramatic kiss on the cheek and zooms off toward the shelf of DVDs with all the eagerness of a small child. It’s endearing, and Erin smiles as she watches her.

Patty shakes her head as she leaves. Abby gives Erin a knowing smirk as she does, and gives her friend a gentle punch on the shoulder.

“You two have fun,” she says, and there’s an odd suggestiveness to her comment that makes Erin flush. She opens her mouth to ask why that is, but then Holtz is back, flopping onto the couch, and in the few seconds of time that Erin is distracted, Abby leaves.

It was probably nothing, Erin thinks to herself. Right?

-

“I used to have such a crush on Mulan,” Holtz says casually. She’s got the nearly empty bowl of popcorn balanced on her stomach as she slouches out across the couch, legs once again across Erin’s lap.

Erin glances over at Holtz, mildly surprised. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah.” Holtz nods, shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “I mean, I was fourteen when the movie came out, and here’s this beautiful, badass girl. I was head over heels. Almost as bad as my crush on Scully from the X-Files.”

“I had a crush on Scully, too,” Erin admits, and Holtz grins, reaching up to give Erin a hi-five.

“Really? Awesome!” She leans back into the pillows, returning her focus to the tv screen. “I started watching in secret when I was eleven because my mom thought it was too scary for me, but I loved it. And Scully. Loved Scully. She was my gay awakening. Mulan was my “yep I’m definitely gay” moment.”

“Mine was Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club,” Erin says. “Although my first crush was Indiana Jones, Ally Sheedy was my-“

“Bisexual awakening?” Holtz interrupts, grinning, and Erin laughs.

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“I can get behind that,” Holtz says, nodding. “Not the Indiana Jones part, but the Ally Sheedy part.”

“I figured.”

-

Erin’s humming along softly to the Tangled soundtrack when Holtz elbows her. Erin glances over in question, and Holtz makes a go on gesture. Erin stops humming, eyebrows knitting in confusion.

Holtz sighs in faux-irritation. “Sing along, Gilbert! We’re two grown women watching a Disney movie. It’s against the law if we don’t sing along.”

Erin laughs. “Oh, really?”

“Yep!” Holtz says seriously, although there’s a smile turning up the edges of her mouth. “Here…one second…”

She rewinds the movie, and as she does, she pulls herself onto her knees, grabbing on of Erin’s hands. Erin freezes at the contact, but Holtz doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, she just shifts her weight and hits play on the movie, grasping Erin’s other hand.

“Ready?”

“Sure?” Erin’s voice squeaks out, and she doesn’t mean for it to come out like a question, but doesn’t know what Holtz is planning, she only knows that Holtzmann is holding both Erin’s hands, is smiling at her in a giddy anticipation.

The movie on the screen starts, swells, and Holtzmann starts singing.

Her voice is lovely. Erin’s heard her sing before, of course; but it’s always been goofy little songs, often in accents or at high volumes or at a level that is not her own. This is the first time she’s heard Holtzmann really sing, and she’s singing earnestly, throwing her heart into it.

There are butterflies in her chest, fireflies in her veins, and she lets herself get lost in Holtz’s voice, her lovely, lovely voice.

At some point, Holtzmann gently digs her elbow into Erin’s side, and Erin remembers with a start that she’s supposed to be singing, too. She picks up the lyrics, hesitantly at first, then with more confidence, and Holtz is grinning as she sings.

The song ends, and Erin is panting, from both singing and the rush of heat arching through her, at Holtzmann’s touch and Holtzmann’s voice and _Holtzmann_. They’re still holding hands, and they’re staring at each other, Holtz’s blue eyes alight with something bright and eager.

Her hair is messy, her clothes are rumbled, her glasses are hanging off her ear, and she’s perfect. She’s so, so perfect.  Erin can’t take her eyes off her lips. She leans forward so, so slightly, before she can stop herself.

But then, the moment is broken. Holtz lets go of Erin’s hands and flops against the couch cushions, gleefully calling Flynn Ryder an idiot when he walks away down the beach, and Erin blinks.

She was going to kiss Holtzmann. If Holtz hadn’t moved, Erin was going to _kiss_ her.

“I’vegottogotothebathroomi’llberightback,” She blurts, and she’s up and off the couch and rushing toward the doorway at the other side of the room, Holtzmann watching her in surprise.

“Do you want me to pause it?”

“NO!”

Erin closes the door maybe a bit too forcefully, and immedietly buries her head in her hands. Oh my god, what was she _doing_?

-

Abby does not sound thrilled when she answers her phone. Erin doesn’t really care, and as soon as she hears Abby’s snapped _what?!_ she starts talking.

“I don’t know what I was thinking! It’s just, it felt like a moment, you know? We were singing and you can’t say it’s not a romantic song and we were holding hands and I wasn’t thinking!”

“ _Singing…what? Wasn’t thinking about what?”_ Abby asks, clearly confused.

Erin lets out a breath. “I almost kissed her, Abby. I almost kissed Holtz.”

_“Woah, really?”_

“Yeah.” Erin rubs at her temples. She can feel a headache forming. “I didn’t, but if she didn’t move, I think I would have.”

She’s not sure what she’s expecting from Abby. Shock, maybe, or disappointment, or anger, even. Instead she gets something very different.

_“It’s about damn time!”_

“What?”

_“Erin, you can’t keep your eyes off her. You go out of your way to talk to her. You gave her cookie dough.”_

“But…she likes cookie dough raw. She always steals it when I’m making cookies.”

_“So do I, but you don’t give me bowls of cookie dough.”_

“Okay, so maybe I like her. But what if she doesn’t like me?”

Abby mumbles something that sounds very much like lovesick idiots before she continues. _“Erin. She flirts with you constantly.”_

“She flirts with everyone.”

_“She flirts with you the most. She always gives you the first choice of new weapons. She’ll share her food with you, and the last time I tried to get her to share food with me she hissed at me like a cat. She can’t keep her eyes off of you, Erin. Trust me. She likes you.”_

Erin twists a strand of hair around her finger. “Okay, but Abby…I don’t know if I’m ready.”

Abby sighs. _“Okay. That’s fine. Just go back and finish watching the movie and don’t kiss her. Work out your feelings or some shit.”_ Erin can hear her yawn through the phone. _“Now, I’m going back to bed.”_

“Hey, Abby?”

_“Yeah?”_

“Thanks.”

_“Of course, Er.”_

Erin hears the soft beep from her phone as Abby hangs up, and she lowers her phone. She can do this.

-

It’s harder than she expected, going back out to Holtz and sitting next to her. Holtz had looked at her in concern, asking if she felt well, and Erin had made up some excuse about dinner not sitting well with her. Holtz had looked skeptical, but had dropped it, much to Erin’s relief.

Erin can’t keep her eyes on the movie. Holtz started Lilo & Stitch once Tangled had ended, and despite Erin’s love for the movie, she keeps watching Holtz, instead. Because yes, she’s finally admitted it to herself.

She has a crush on the tiny, blonde engineer sitting next to her. She’s had a crush on her pretty much since she met her, and now that she actually puts words to it it’s like it’s intensifying, threatening to steal her breath away. At one point, Holtz shifts, and her knee bumps Erin’s and it’s like fireworks have been lit under her skin.

And it’s because she keeps looking over at Holtz that she notices Holtz is crying. Not a lot, just small, silent tears streaming down her face. And, before Erin can stop herself, she reaches over, uses her thumb to brush them away.

Holtz’s breath hitches, and she turns to Erin.

“I’m sorry,” she says, a little laugh in her voice. “It’s just…” she gestures at the screen. “He’s so lonely, y’know? And I understand what that feels like.”

“Hey,” Erin says, softly, putting a hand on Holtz’s arm. “It’s okay.”

Holtz stays silent for a second, then, slowly, she scooches closer, leans her head on Erin’s shoulder. She curls up against Erin’s side, and Erin stiffens, then relaxes, and leans into Holtz, as well.

They watch the movie in silence for a few minutes, and then Holtz is shifting, and she’s looking up and Erin and Erin’s looking down at her, and Erin feels something contact between them. A thread, thin and delicate and barely there, but there all the same.

Holtz leans up, Erin leans down, and they’re kissing. There’s no fire behind this, not sudden burst of passion. It’s gentle and slow and quick, barely the space of a breath before Holtz is pulling away, biting her lip.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” She admits, and there’s a fear in the outskirts of the words, and Erin understands.

“I have, too,” She says, and she watches as the fear burns away and Holtzmann lights up, reaching up to tug Erin down, kissing her again.

When they pull away, they don’t say anything. They just watch the movie. When it ends, Holtz flicks the TV off, and the late-night hour sings a song of sleep in Erin’s ear. Holtz snuggles up against her, tucking her face in Erin’s neck, and it’s like everything in Erin is narrowing to that point of contact. Because Holtz is soft and messy and perfect, rapidly being pulled toward sleep, and there’s a warmth in her chest, inviting and persistent.

Erin knows they have time to explore that feeling, but right now she’s tired, so she rests her forehead against Holtz’s hair pulls the blanket up, over them. She knows that when she wakes in the morning, she’ll be stiff and sore from sleeping in such an unusual position, but she doesn’t care.

Because Holtz is asleep against her, and underneath the blankets, they’re holding hands, fingers entwined, and Erin doesn’t want to let go.

She never, ever wants to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A friend and I have a rule that if we're watching Disney movies together, and we're alone in the house, we have to sing along to the songs. Which is how I know every single freaking word to all the songs in The Aristocats, because it's my friend's favorite.


	4. Love Me, Kill Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Four: Laundry Day

At first, Erin barely spares a glance to greet her girlfriend, not looking over from her whiteboard as she mumbles a vague greeting. She’s stuck, an equation giving her more trouble than it’s worth, and she’s been here since six, and she’s done basically nothing but chew on the caps of her whiteboard markers. Now she’s downstairs, perched on the edge of Abby’s desk in hopes that talking it out would cause inspiration to strike. She balances the smaller, portable whiteboard on her knees, gesturing at the numbers with the tip of her marker.

But, then, she notices something out of the corner of her eye, and she turns her head so fast that her neck pops, stopping her conversation with Abby mid-sentence.

Because Holtz is wearing a _dress_. The rest of her outfit is relatively normal; leather jacket and messy hair and combat boots and mismatched socks, but the dress. The dress is new. Erin wasn’t even aware that Holtzmann owned any dresses, and this…

It’s a sundress, flowy and spaghetti-strapped and ending above her knees, black and white patterned, and something in Erin’s brain grinds suddenly to a halt. Holtz is already mostly leg, and this just amplifies it, draws attention to it, and Erin can almost feel the smoke pouring from her ears.

Abby grins, raising an eyebrow. “Holtz, I think you just broke your girlfriend.”

Erin closes her mouth (she’d been unaware that it was hanging open), stutters out a couple of words, and ends with an unintelligent _um_.

Patty, at her desk next to Abby’s, laughs, loudly. Grinning, she points a pen at Erin. “Do y’all need a jump start?”

Erin flushes bright red, gathering her papers to her chest, accidently knocking over Abby’s cup of highlighters in the process.

“I’m going to go upstairs!” She practically yells this in her eagerness to get away before she embarrasses herself even more, and flies up the stairs. She can hear the cackling from below, and she blushes even harder.

-

Holtz is doing on purpose. Erin knows she is. There’s no logical reason she needs to walk in front of Erin’s desk so many times in such a short period, and she always lingers just a touch too long for it to be casual. At one point, Erin makes the mistake of meeting her eyes, and Holtzmann’s smirk is smug and _daring_ , and Erin grips her pencil so tight her knuckles turn white.

There’s been a heat gathering low in her pelvis all afternoon, and Holtz seems to be taking a special care to make sure that it never fades.

Even Patty and Abby seem to be taking a special pleasure in Erin’s reaction, finding her flustered stuttering extremely amusing, and there’s more than one extremely suggestive comment.

But it all comes to a head when Holtz, probably accidently but possibly on purpose, knocks a thankfully unfinished and therefor unexplosive grenade off her work bench. Erin’s eyes track the expanse of skin as the skirt of the dress rides up when she leans down to pick it up, and something inside her snaps.

She moves so quickly that even she’s slightly surprised when she corners Holtzmann against the desk, hands on either side of her hips.

Holtz smirks. “Hello, Erin. Is there something I can do for you?”

“Are you trying to kill me?” Erin demands, and her voice comes out slightly strangled. “I’ve never seen you wear a dress before. Ever.”

“It’s laundry day, Er-Bear. Everything else was dirty.” Holtz’s lips have a seductive tilt to them, and she leans closer to Erin then they already are, their lips just shy of touching. “And I thought it might be fun. And oh, it is.”

She rolls her hips against Erin’s, slowly and deliberately, and Erin bites back the gasp that spills from her lips. Her hands find Holtz’s hips unconsciously, fingertips digging in, and Holtzmann bites her lip and gives Erin a _look_ , all heavy-lidded eyes and sensual smirk, and the heat is back and building.

So she pulls the tiny, blonde engineer closer and kisses her, hard and fast, and Holtz moans against her lips, her own arms pulling Erin closer. One hand sneaks down, under the waistband of Erin’s jeans, and the touch is delicious and _addicting_ , and also extremely off-limits. Erin regretfully pushes Holtz away, panting.

“Remember Patty’s rule?” Erin says, bracing her hands against Holtz’s chest to try and prevent her from coming forward again. “No sex in the firehouse!”

“Rules are meant to be broken,” Holtzmann says, and before Erin can blink, she’s out from under Erin’s arms and is dancing backwards, towards the stairs, one eyebrow raised, making an exaggerating come hither motion with her finger.

Erin groans, even as she takes her girlfriend’s hand, allowing Holtz to pull her up the stairs, toward the relative privacy of the tiny bedroom. Her mind is still stuck, like it was this morning, but instead of being filled with numbers, it’s stuck on _legs_ and _skin_ and _Holtzmann_.

And she kind of likes this better.

-

The skirt hadn’t been what Holtzmann was looking for in the pile of clothes, but she’ll call it a happy find.

It’s Erin’s, clearly; not short enough to be Patty’s and Abby wouldn’t be caught dead in the fabric of stuffy professors (tweed), tossed in the pile of clean clothes with everyone else’s. Whoever had been the ectoplasm-clean-up-crew last (Holtzmann), had gone to the laundromat and thrown all the clothes into one big basket, instead of separating it out by person. She had gotten kind of distracted (there had been a _dog_ ).

And now, she’s in the locker room, in only a towel, skin still pink from hot water and the removal of ectoplasm, and she needs something to wear. And she’s got no more clean clothes of her normal sort stashed anywhere nearby. And sure, she could wear a pair of her leggings and a tank top, like she planned, but ever since the events that revolved around The Dress a month previous, she has a newfound appreciation for dresses, and skirts by extension.

Erin’s reaction had been _fun_. Very fun. Barely wait until we’re in the room before we start ripping each other’s clothes off kind of fun.

It had been _well_ worth Patty’s glares and Abby’s relentless teasing, after.

So yeah, newfound appreciation and all that. Which is why she pulls on the skirt over her One of The Boys tee, instead of selecting something more to her usual style.

Just Erin’s reaction when Holtz goes and finds her is totally worth it.

She’s on the top floor, sitting at the table, a mug of tea in her hands, papers spread out in front of her, hair still wet from her own shower. She looks up at Holtz, smiling warmly. Then her eyes go wide and she freezes, mug halfway to her mouth.

Holtz plucks a plum Danish from the box sitting on the table, left over from breakfast, and hoists herself up onto the counter. She swings her feet as she sits, and Erin’s eyes track the movement. Slowly, she sets down her mug.

“Holtz? Is that my skirt?” Her voice sounds odd, almost forced, and Holtzmann nods, slowly, watching as Erin’s throat bobs as she swallows hard. The delicious heat of _wanting_ swirls low in her belly, and she leans forward.

“Like it? Not usually something I would wear, but, y’know, it’s laundry day.”

Erin’s eyes grow dark with desire, and she sets down her mug of tea. Holtz hops off the counter, the movement making the skirt fly up briefly, and Holtz watches as Erin notices the tiny detail.

It’s a quick, sudden movement, and it surprises Erin enough to make her jump, but Holtz is now sitting in Erin’s lap, straddling her thighs. She leans forward, breathing softly in Erin’s ear.

“I’m feeling like having some _fun_.” She nips, gently, at Erin’s earlobe as she pulls away, and Erin makes a little gasping sound low in her throat. Holtz smirks, moving to slide off Erin’s lap, but suddenly, Erin’s fingers are digging into Holtz’s waist, and her girlfriend actually _growls_ , pulling Holtz forward into a bruising kiss.

They don’t even make it into the bedroom, this time.

Needless to say, Erin’s tea goes cold.

-

The formal events aren’t Erin’s favorite thing to do. She gets why they have to do them, of course; The Ghostbusters are pretty much celebrities, now, and their salary (and rent and electricity and water and gas…) are paid for by the mayor, so they have to show up at whatever he wants them to show up at. But they remind Erin too much of all the events she went to as a professor at Colombia, and she’s never been good at networking.

Patty’s a natural; you can’t talk to her and not instantly like her, and she charms her ways through the functions with an ease that makes Erin jealous. Abby, frankly, doesn’t care one bit, and Jennifer Lynch has stopped trying to get her to care, so she mostly sits with Erin, looking immensely bored.

Erin’s problem is that she still cares a bit too much. She cares what other people think about her, and although most people believe that the Ghostbusters are real, actual, brilliant people, not just fakes looking for their five minutes of fame, there still are the doubters. And Erin has an unfortunate record of running into those people. And, well, she’s tired of that all-to-familiar combination of embarrassment and anger.

“Where’s Holtzmann?” Abby asks, now, picking at her plate of hors d'oeuvres, and Erin shrugs.

“I dunno. She wasn’t home when I got there, and she didn’t get back before I had to leave. So she either forgot and is still at the firehouse, or she got ready at the firehouse.” Either option works out equally well for Erin; with the first, she has an excuse to bow out early, and with the second, it means that Holtz will most likely show up in an absolutely ridiculous outfit just to watch Jennifer Lynch grind her teeth.

But when she finally does show up, she’s not in a ridiculous outfit, and what she’s actually wearing steals the breath from Erin’s lungs.

Her hair is still in a bun, a bit more subdued than her normal style, although there are still a few long, blonde strands coming free. She’s in flats, and that’s not a surprise, because she has expressed her utter loathing for heels many a time. It’s the dress that’s surprising.

All women have a little black dress. _Erin_ has a little black dress, despite her distaste for form-fitting clothing. But she never expected Holtz to have a little black dress.

And this is a little black dress.

The bodice is nearly skin tight, extenuating Holtzmann’s every curve, neckline dipping low, and is transitions into a looser (though not loose), more flowing skirt, ending a few inches above her knees. Abby makes a surprised sound next to Erin, and from across the room Patty is gawking, and Erin’s brain is cycling through _Holtzmann dress Holtzmann dress_.

Holtz stands above Erin, her grin mischievous and _knowing_ , and Erin could kill her right now, even as she takes the offered hand.

“Care to dance, mi’lady?” Holtz asks, her old-timey accent overexaggerated and awful, and she spins Erin out onto the dance floor, dipping her so low that Erin yelps and clutches at her shoulders. Holtz laughs as she pulls Erin up, floor dipping from the rush of blood to and from her head, and Erin clings to her for support.

Holtz’s breath is warm against Erin’s neck, and they sway gently together. At one point, Erin makes eye contact with Patty, who widens her eyes in a question. Erin lifts a shoulder, taking a hand off Holtz’s waist, palm up in a shrug.

She has no idea why Holtzmann chose to wear a dress tonight. She only knows that she is, and it’s making Erin very, very distracted.

The next song is a quick one, and Holtz spins them across the dance floor, leading Erin in some wild combination of a waltz, a salsa, and a quickstep. Erin is surprisingly good at it, even on her heels and gasping for breath, and at one point, Holtz looks at her, eyebrow raised in a surprised delight.

The song ends, and they end up pressed together, chest to chest, and Erin’s heart is pounding, chest heaving, and she can’t help but trace her fingers across the bare skin of Holtz’s spine, the dress’s back dipping daringly low, and Holtz shivers, letting out a tiny, breathy sound in Erin’s ear.

They’ve barely said five words to each other since Holtz got here, and Erin has a fire in her belly and a hunger in her chest. She can hardly think straight, and when Holtz presses a tender, barely there kiss against Erin’s jaw, she breaks.

She drags Holtzmann from the dance floor, from the ballroom, and into the first bathroom she can find. Once she confirms it’s empty, she locks the doors and spins on her girlfriend, who’s lounging against the wall, looking every bit at ease.

“What can I do for you?” She drawls, and Erin growls, surging forward. The kiss is hard and bruising, all teeth and tongue and white-hot desire. Erin backs Holtz up, back against the sinks, and kisses a trail across her lips, her jawline, down her neck. One of Holtz’s hand comes around, cups the base of Erin’s skull, and she’s making little, breathy sounds, not quite moans but _almost_.

Erin pushes the sleeve of the dress aside, kissing down pale skin marked with the barest dusting of barely-there freckles, and sinks her teeth into the skin just above Holtzmann’s left breast. It’s soft, more nip than bite, no chance of bruising, because Holtz has no way of hiding a bruise, not in this dress, and Erin wants to give her a chance to hide it, if she wished. She wouldn’t, even if she did; Holtzmann wears the bruises like a medal of honor, tokens of love and of wanting. But still, Erin is careful, and sooths the small hurt with a gentle kiss.

The sound that Holtzmann makes is obscene, _filthy_ , somewhere between a moan and a guttural cry, and Erin smiles against her skin. With a quick heave, she lifts Holtz from under her thighs, just enough for Holtz to slide her butt onto the countertop that connects the sinks.

The damn dress.

Erin slides it up, up, up Holtzmann’s legs, revealing inch after tantalizing inch of smooth skin marred by the occasional scar, and Holtz’s hand comes down and threads through her hair, loosening Erin’s elegant bun. It will be a pain to fix without her curling iron, her hairspray, her brush, but in this moment Erin doesn’t care. She reaches up, under the dress, searching for the edges of Holtz’s underwear, but she finds nothing.

“You’re going to kill me, Jillian,” She groans, and begins her trail of kisses up the soft skin on the inside of her girlfriend’s thighs. There’s a gentle thud as Holtz’s head falls back and hits the mirror, and Erin can hear the smile in her voice. She knows that Holtzmann planned this, that this was Holtzmann’s goal all along, and that should frustrate her, but she’s reached the heat, and it takes her breath away. Holtzmann gives a gasping little groan.

“What? It’s laundry day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Whistles innocently*


	5. Knock, Knock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 5: Alternate Universe

It’s Erin’s favorite spot on campus. Sure, she loves the shady, stone bench under the oak tree by the dorms and the stairwell that leads to her adviser’s office that never has anyone in it and the quiet, peaceful corners of the library, but this bakery is her favorite place out of all of them.

It’s tiny and tucked in a corner, and it’s busy between classes but Erin knows the best time to come, when it’s her and other students studying to the soft noises of the coffee machine and classical music and the warm smells drifting from the kitchen. She always sits in the same corner table with the same kind of drink (London Fog, with lavender AND vanilla, not one or the other), and she loves the large ceramic mugs in warm colors; red and blue and green and orange.

And, yes, she loves the pastries, too.

Macarons with their bright shells and creamy fillings; croissants with their hollow, buttery pockets; the towering, creamy chocolate mousses glazed with a shining layer of chocolate glacage; the meringues, large ones the size of the palm of her hand with their chewy, marshmallowy interiors and small ones no bigger than a dime that shatter, crystalline, between her teeth; the crispy, smoky-sweet palmiers; tiny profiteroles dipped in chocolate and filled with crème Chantilly; chocolate tarts with their perfectly crumbly crust and a layer of warm caramel; the rich, dense chocolate sponge of the Sacher torte.

So no, the peaceful warmth of Royal Icing isn’t the only reason she comes to the bakery.

Erin spreads her books out on the table, a fresh page of her notebook open in front of her, and bites into her Kouign Amann with a happy sigh. It crumbles with her first bite, flakey viennoiserie dough with the crispy caramelized-sugar layers and rich buttery center, all together perfect. She makes another small, happy sound, sips at her drink, and throws herself into studying.

And she’s never interrupted, here, because everyone who comes in on the late Wednesday afternoons are going to be studying, too, so that’s why it’s a surprise when someone clears their throat above her. She looks up, expecting it to be Abby come to find her, but, instead, it’s a girl she’s never seen before.

She’s small and pale and blonde, hair pinned up in a wild style. She’s a few years younger than Erin; eighteen, maybe, or nineteen as compared to Erin’s twenty-two. She’s wearing a short-sleeved chef coat and black and white checked pants dusted with flour and smeared with chocolate, and she’s got a pair of yellow-tinted glasses perched low in her nose. In her hands, she holds something on a piece of paper towel.

“Come here often?” She asks, a slight smirk on her face. Despite the fact that she’s standing directly above Erin’s table, and Erin’s the only one in the immediate area, Erin can’t stop herself from glancing around to see if there’s someone else this girl could be talking too.

“Oh, uh…I’m sorry? Who are you?” Erin finally replies, after a moment of eye contact a heartbeat too long to not be considered awkward.

“Holtzmann,” The girl says, transferring whatever she’s holding into one hand, thrusting out her other for Erin to shake. “Virgo. Avid Skier. Gluten- _full_. And one hundred percent jazzed to meet _you_.”

This only serves to further Erin’s confusion, because there’s a flirtatious vibe to the words, and the girl- Holtzmann -shakes her hand with an eagerness more fitting an enthusiastic child then a girl in chef whites.

“I’m Erin,” Erin says, and the girl nods, plopping into the seat across from Erin.

“You come in every Monday and Wednesday, Erin,” Holtzmann says, matter of factly. “You always order the same drink and sit in the same spot and study for exactly two hours and forty-five minutes before you leave again.”

“I have half days Mondays and Wednesdays,” Erin says, and she’s not sure if she should be creeped out or not that this stranger knows her schedule.

Holtzmann nods, once. She leans back in her chair, tossing an arm across the back of it. “Weeeell,” She says, drawing the word out. “It seems you like us. And I thought I’d come out with a treat to thank you, since you clearly need round two.” She nods at the plate and the last crumbs of the Kouign Amann. She gestures for Erin to hold her hands out. Erin does with some hesitation, and with a great flare, Holtzmann deposits the paper-towel into them.

In it sits an envelope of Danish dough, cradling a small pile of what Erin thinks is lemon curd and a perfectly fanned strawberry, shiny and brushed with simple syrup. She looks up at Holtzmann, who leans an elbow against the tabletop, propping her chin against it.

Erin takes a bite, because she doesn’t know what else to do, and oh.

 _Oh_.

It’s delicious. The dough is perfectly baked, airy and crispy and rich and buttery all at once, crowned by the bright yellow sunshine of the lemon curd, the spring sweetness of the strawberry cutting through the citrus zing. She takes another bite, and she thinks she may sigh a little bit, because Holtzmann breaks into a grin.

She has dimples, Erin notices. Deep ones, her right one deeper than her left, and it’s oddly endearing.

“It’s good, right?” Holtzmann says happily. “I used crème citron instead of lemon curd so it’s a bit more tart, and I developed the gluten a liiiitle more, and brushed the whole thing with simple syrup when I was done.” She watches Erin take another bite, a satisfied expression on her face. “I’m considering using this recipe and making three types; one with strawberries, one with raspberries, and one with blueberries, too see if one particular berry gives it a little more _oomph_.”

“It’s amazing like this,” Erin assures her, and Holtzmann straight up beams. Then her eyes grow wide, and she launches backwards from the table.

“Shit! My quiche!” She’s already halfway back to the swinging door that would let her behind the bakery case, which she vaults over instead of opening. She disappears into the entrance into the kitchen, and Erin watches after her, strangely disappointed.

-

Erin comes back on Monday, like she always does, orders her usual drink and sits at her usual table and eats a pastry (a mini Paris-Brest), and tries to study, like usual. But, for some reason, she’s watching for Holtzmann out of the corner of her eye, waiting to see if she’ll make an appearance

And she does. She appears as quickly as she had on Wednesday, and this time she holds a mini cupcake in her hands, frosted in whirls of silky buttercream. She places it in front of Erin with an overdramatic flare.

“Spicy Chocolate Cinnamon,” she says, watching carefully as Erin takes tiny, delicate bites of the cupcake. Erin nods eagerly, the warm, fall flavors of the treat comforting on her tongue. Holtzmann smiles.

-

They continue this for a couple of weeks. Erin will come in at her usual time, and sometime after she does, Holtzmann will come bouncing out of the kitchen and present her with a new treat that she’s trying out. Mostly, the things she tries are delicious, like the sweet-crunchy-chewy honey meringues. Some are mediocre, like the raspberry white chocolate scones, and very few are plain _bad_ , like the orange-cinnamon cookies that tasted like Erin had just licked an air freshener.

And Erin finds herself looking forward to those few minutes with Holtzmann, because Holtzmann bleeds eccentricity and oddness but in the most delightful way, and it makes Erin feel like she can relax around her, stop worrying about how she appears and how other people think about her, and before this, she’s only ever felt that way around Abby.

So when Holtzmann asks if Erin wants to hang out outside of the few minutes in the bakery, Erin says yes without hesitation.

-

“Aw, Erin made a friend!” Abby coos teasingly from her bed. “I’m so proud.”

Erin scowls at her best friend from her place by the door, sitting in front of the mirror that they had propped against the wall. They both hate getting ready in the communal bathrooms of the dorm; the mirrors are always steamed and they’re not the cleanest places to be.

“I have other friends,” Erin grumbles, digging through her tiny makeup bag. “You’re making it sound like I don’t.”

Abby tucks a bookmark into her novel and closes it, propping her chin up on her elbow to watch Erin apply lipstick. “No, you have one friend. Me. And, don’t get me wrong, I’m an awesome friend-“

“Modest.”

“Hey, it’s true. And you’ve been an antisocial little hermit lately, so you haven’t exactly been getting out and about.” She makes a vague gesture. “You haven’t been doing the college thing.”

“And what is the “college thing” exactly?”

“MEETING PEOPLE. Getting out and about, drinking illegally, making out with random guys in the back rooms of parties.”

Erin gives Abby an irritated look. “I get out and about, I’m twenty-two so it’s impossible for me to drink illegally, and you don’t make out with random guys in the back rooms of parties, so you’re one to talk.”

“ _Pfft_.”

“Abby!”

“Anyways,” Abby says, ducking to avoid the pillow Erin had flung at her. “I’d say this is a bit more than making a new friend, though.”

“What do you mean?” Erin asks, pulling her hair up into a ponytail.

Abby gives her a look. “Erin. You’re putting on lipstick. You hate lipstick. You’re wearing your hair up, and I don’t think I’ve seen you in anything but jeans and hoodies all year.”

Erin looks down at her skirt and button up shirt. “What? I like it! I look good.”

“You do look good,” Abby agrees, and there’s a strange smugness in her voice. “First date good.”

Erin instantly turns a brightly, brilliant red. “What…I’m not…she’s not…I don’t…” She stammers, unable to meet Abby’s eyes.

“Don’t like girls?” Abby finishes, raising an eyebrow. “Erin, that’s bullshit. Let’s see…Yvonne Devin. Every time she smiled at you, you blushed. Like you’re doing now, by the way. A few months later, same thing, but with Lucille McCall.”

“I…she…”

Abby raises her voice to talk over Erin, ticking off the names on her fingers. “Eleventh grade, there was Etta Mabry. Last half of eleventh and well into twelfth, might I add. Freshman year of college, Penny Goldman. Second half of freshman year, Mishka Kaur. Sophomore year, Al-“

“Okay, I get it!” Erin says, interrupting Abby mid-sentence. “I like girls.”

Abby smiles in triumph. “Have fun on your not-date that’s probably a date,” she sings as Erin pulls on her jacket. “And if you’re not back in time for X-Files, I’m watching it without you.”

-

It occurs to Erin as she stands outside her apartment building waiting for Holtzmann that she’s never seen her in anything but her chef coat and checked pants, and she’s unsure as to what Holtzmann is actually going to be wearing. The thought causes a strange stab of anxiety, because even though campus is pretty much empty right now, she still worries she’ll somehow miss Holtzmann.

She’s worried for nothing. Holtzmann bounces straight up to her, waving wildly the entire time.

“Eriiiin!” The younger woman says, absolutely bleeding enthusiasm, throwing an arm around her. “What’re we going to do?”

“Oh,” Erin says, slightly taken aback. She hadn’t thought about it, honestly. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”

They do what two broke college students who have no desire to hang around campus do. They go out for pizza.

The pizza place is slightly sketchy to Erin; all plastic tables and disposable plates and a layer of grease over everything, but Holtzmann cheerfully insists that even bad pizza is still _somewhat good pizza_ , so she goes along with it and orders a slice.

They sit at one of the three booths, and Erin plots the grease from her pizza slice with a napkin, looking around. Most of the students were out doing something else; it was a Friday night, after all, and there were parties happening and better restaurants to go to and things to study. So there are only three other people in here; a middle-age couple over in the other booth, and the bored looking teenager behind the counter.

Holtzmann plows her way through three slices of pizza in the time it takes Erin to eat half of hers, and sits back, nearly empty soda cup dangling from the straw, clenched firmly between Holtzmann’s teeth.

“So,” Erin says, when the silence has stretched a little too long for comfort, “How did you end up working at Royal Icing?” She’s been curious for a while, because she knows that bakeries don’t regularly hire nineteen-year-olds and set them loose in the kitchens, and Holtz seems like a kind of volatile person to, well, set loose.

“It was my mom’s,” Holtzmann explains, cup bobbing as she speaks. “She was the chemistry teacher for a while, but she always loved to bake, so she quit her job, went to the Culinary Institute of America, and came back, and the facility let her take over the campus bakery.”

“And…does she still work there?” Erin asks, cautiously.

“She died when I was seventeen,” Holtzmann says, and when Erin starts to stammer out apologizes, just shrugs. “You didn’t know.”

“Who runs it now?” Erin asks.

“The facility, officially,” Holtzmann says, and leans back in the booth. “Unofficially…” she smiles. “I do.”

“They just let you stay?”

“Yeah,” Holtz says. “I mean, I grew up in that kitchen, which was probably illegal, or at the very least thoroughly frowned upon, but whatever. I could make a perfect croissant by the time I was thirteen, while the rest of the kids at school could barely make boxed mac ‘n’ cheese. I know my stuff. They’re not going to kick me out. As long as everything runs smoothly and we still make money- other people handle all the boring business stuff -and I don’t burn the building down, it’s all good.”

Erin nods, and, just out of chance, happens to catch the time on the clock above the door. She gasps.

“Oh!” She begins gathering her things, checking her watch at the same time to make sure the clock is accurate. It is. “I’m sorry, I have to go! I’ll see you Monday?”

Holtzmann looks disappointed, but nods. “Yeah. Monday.”

Erin pauses. There’s something about the idea of leaving Holtz sitting here, alone, that causes a pang in her gut, even as she smiles up at Erin. “Hey,” Erin says, “Do you like the X-Files?”

Holtzmann’s eyes light up. “Are you kidding? I used to sneak-watch it in the basement while my mom was doing something else because she thought it was too scary for me. It’s amazing.”

“Well, Abby and I always take over the common room of the dorm to watch it…would you maybe like to watch it with us?”

Holtzmann’s entire face lights up.

-

Everyone in the dorm knows that Abby and Erin get the TV for the one hour that the X-Files is on. Everyone has, at one point or another, been caught up in the wrath of one Abigail Yates, and, really, it’s not worth the trouble to watch anything else. So everyone either patiently waits for the X-Files to be over, or begrudgingly watches it with them. Sometimes, people will try to argue, but after Abby reduced one rather embarrassed boy to tears when he tried to watch college football, people don’t anymore. It’s not worth the pain.

Today is no different. Abby has staked out the best couch in the room, and is sitting right in the middle of it, a bowl of popcorn balanced, a bit precariously, on each knee. Few other people are in the room; a couple of fellow X-Files fans, the kid who got kicked off the tv, the girl sitting at a table painting her fingernails. Holtzmann looks around curiously, following Erin over to Abby.

“Here’s your popcorn,” Abby says, forcing the bowl into Erin’s hands. She turns to Holtzmann, giving her an undisguised once-over.

“You must be-“

“Jillian Holtzmann, radio times,” She says, cheerfully, grasping Abby’s hand in a shake that goes on a little too long.

“I’m sorry,” Abby says, “If Erin _told me_ you were coming I would have made you your own popcorn.” She says this with a very pointed look at Erin, who shrugs apologetically.

“It was a recent addition to the plans?”

“It’s fine,” Holtzmann says, plopping herself down on the couch. She smiles up at them, dimples flashing. “I’ll share with Erin.”

Something in Erin gives a little flutter, and that flutter only intensifies when she ends up squished between Holtzmann and Abby. The couch is small, and only really meant to fit two people comfortably, so they’re pressed together shoulder to shoulder, and Erin ends up in the middle.

And, as much as she loves Mulder and Scully, she can’t really focus on the show, because Holtzmann’s practically sitting on her lap, and she seems totally fine with the close physical contact, at one point resting her elbow on Erin’s shoulder to keep herself propped up. And Erin’s brain is short circuiting, caught on all the places where Holtzmann brushes against her. Her thigh is tinging, and she tries to tell herself it’s just because Holtz is cutting off circulation, but then why are her side tingling where Holtzmann’s arm is squished between her hips and ribcage? Why does her heart do a little jump whenever Holtzmann shifts position?

She tries to ignore Abby’s strangely smug looks that she sends Erin’s way throughout the entire hour. It’s harder than she expected.

-

Erin still sees Holtzmann at the bakery, yes, but they start seeing each other outside of it, too. They don’t really have a lot of free time between classes and work and studying, but they see each other when they can. It’s good, because Abby likes Holtzmann, too, so, sometimes the three of them hang out, and then they’re introduced to Holtzmann’s roommate. Patty is a tall, eternally smiling ray of sunshine who you can’t help but immedietly like. She and Holtzmann are an entertaining sight to see together, because they’re the opposite in about every way, not just their chosen paths.

Holtzmann is studying to be a nuclear engineer, with a minor for physics, Patty is double majoring between history and architecture, AND is taking a few art classes on the side, which makes Erin’s head hurt just thinking about the amount of work she has. Meanwhile, Erin and Abby are busy, too, Erin with her major in theoretical particle physics, Abby in astrophysics. And they all have jobs; Holtz at the bakery and Erin at a local bookstore and Abby at a restaurant off campus and Patty at a natural history museum. So, yeah, free time is few and far in between, but they make do.

And they all get along so well that after a couple of months that they start getting together outside of just the four of them. Erin and Patty will go study together, Abby and Patty see plays put on by the theater majors, and Abby and Holtzmann are a match made in heaven (or hell, depending on who you talk to) and they all learn after a rather spectacular fire in Dr. Gorin’s lab that they shouldn’t be left alone anywhere near possibility unstable equipment unsupervised.

The only downside is that Abby won’t stop teasing her about her “dating” Holtzmann.

“I’m not dating her, Abby!” Erin says for what feels like the millionth time, after she tiptoes into their dorm room at 1AM only to find Abby waiting up for her.

“Really?” Abby says, cocking an eyebrow. “Because all this…” she waves a hand up and down Erin. “Seems a lot like you secretly dating someone.”

Erin runs a hand over her dress, cheeks growing hot. “We went to a fundraiser! Dr. Gorin was doing a speech and Holtzmann wanted to support her.”

“Uh huh,” Abby says, and Erin blushes even brighter. She flops down onto her bed, kicking off her heels. Her feet ache, and she wishes she had worn flats, instead, even if her heels look better.

“I swear, Abby, we’re not dating.”

“Okay, but are you sleeping together?”

“Abby!”

“Fine,” Abby says, and leans back onto her own bed. “But, Erin, you seem to really like her. What if opportunity’s knocking for you to date someone who’s not an asshole for once, and you’re throwing it away.” She gives Erin a look that makes Erin close her mouth before she was even aware she was opening it. “I know you like her, Erin.”

“Maybe I do,” Erin says softly. There’s a loose thread on her bedspread she picks at it before she can stop herself. “But…I just…my parents.”

Abby’s silent for a long while. “They don’t have to know, Erin. You don’t have to seek their approval anymore.”

Erin laughs, but it’s closer to a scoff. “I know it’s stupid. I’m stupid. I’ll never get their approval. In their eyes I’m just a terrified little girl who’s lying about a ghost of a neighbor for their attention.”

“Erin, you’re not stupid,” Abby says, so fiercely that Erin looks over, shocked. “You’re brilliant, one of the smartest people I know.” She leans over, rummages in the desk that they had wedged under the window, between the two beds. She pulls out a stack of papers, handwritten in a combination of Erin’s neat script and Abby’s messy, smudged scrawl. “This is not a work of someone who’s stupid. It’s our baby, Erin, and it’s a brilliant baby.”

She tosses it Erin, who catches it. She runs her fingertips across the title page. _Ghosts from Our Past_. She and Abby had spent hours and days and weeks and months and years working on this book, poured every bit of knowledge on ghosts into it, had chosen their fields of study because of it.

“But no one wants to publish it,” Erin says, setting it aside.

“Yeah, because they’re all stupid,” Abby says. “Erin, you’re brilliant, we’re brilliant, our baby’s brilliant. And you don’t have to be seeking your parents small-minded approval.”

“I guess,” Erin says softly.

Even long after Abby falls asleep, Erin stays awake, staring at the blank ceiling, thoughts a storm.

-

Abby’s birthday is rapidly approaching, and she keeps insisting on no gifts, no party. But Erin still wants to do something for her. So, she goes to Holtzmann.

“I want to make Abby a cake,” Erin says, a bit nervously. “And I can barely make a cake with a box mix, let alone actually make one look pretty. Do you think…you could…?”

“Show you how to bake a cake?” Holtzmann asks, grinning, and Erin nods. Holtzmann grabs Erin’s shoulders. “Oh, Er, I’ve been waiting for this moment. Consider me your guide to all things baked good.”

“I can pay you,” Erin says, and Holtzmann shakes her head.

“Naw, Abby’s my friend, too. Consider the lack of cost my birthday present to her.” She hops up, grabbing Erin’s hand to pull her to her feet. The pit of Erin’s stomach dips at the contact, like she’s on a roller coaster just before the drop. “Her birthday is on Tuesday, right?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll meet you in Royal Icing, 5PM sharp, and we’ll make a glorious cake,” Holtzmann promises. She lets go of Erin’s hand, and Erin is left, standing in the grass outside the campus library, staring at her tinging palm.

-

“Welcome to my realm!” Holtzmann crows, flinging the door to the kitchen open. Erin steps inside, cautiously, clutching a folded apron borrowed from Holtz to her chest. Holtzmann spins on her heel, giving a wide gesture to the open room of the kitchen. “In this realm, I am queen, so you must refer to me as either Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Or Supreme Ruler of All.”

“I’ll just stick with Holtzmann, if that’s okay.”

“That works too,” Holtz says, and leans back against one of the heavy wooden tables. She smiles at Erin, tilting her head. “So. Tell me. What does Abby like?”

“She likes red velvet,” Erin says, instantly.

Holtzmann nods, thoughtfully. “A solid, if slightly unusual, choice. Is she a white chocolate or a cream cheese person?”

“Um…what?”

“Really, the only two frostings you can use with a red velvet cake are white chocolate or cream cheese, and most people fall very firmly into one camp or another. Which way does Abby swing? White chocolate or cream cheese?”

“I’m not actually sure,” Erin says, watching as Holtzmann flies into action, jumping up to grab a heavy, stuffed binder off the top of a rolling shelf.

“We’ll call a truce, then, and make white chocolate cream cheese frosting,” Holtzmann says, tongue between her teeth as she flicks through the binder. “I like it better, anyway. The cream cheese cuts the sweetness of the white chocolate and the white chocolate mellows the tang of the cream cheese.”

She extracts a piece of paper from the binder with a triumphant flourish, and flings the binder back into its spot.

“Our formula, Igor!” Holtzmann shoves the piece of paper into Erin’s hands and dances off. Within about thirty seconds, there’s music blasting through speakers Erin hadn’t noticed, the whirring of ovens turning on and heating up, and the loud clatter of a stack of sheet pans being dropped on a table.

“it is time, Erin, for mise en place!” Holtzmann says, dancing around the table to grab at Erin’s hands.

“ _Meeze in plawss_?” Erin sounds the words out. They’re unfamiliar, strange on her tongue, but Holtzmann’s wild smile only widens.

“Mise en place!” She says, again, as if it answers Erin’s question. “Everything in its place!” She taps the formula with her fingertips. “Do you want to scale for the cake or the frosting?”

“The frosting,” Erin says. It has less ingredients, less chance to screw up the measurements, which are all in metric.

It still takes her nearly twice as long to scale out as it takes Holtz to scale for the cake, and even then, Holtzmann has to get some of the ingredients for her, because she doesn’t understand half the things Holtzmann says to her.

_Don’t use the Plugra, use the normal stuff. Grab a paddle attachment for the twelve-quart while you’re in the dish pit. Don’t use the coverture for this, use the junk chocolate._

But still, it’s fun, and she gets to watch Holtzmann.

It’s fascinating, really. It’s mildly horrifying, too, when she finds out how much food coloring actually goes into red velvet cake. But Holtzmann, Holtzmann is fascinating. Erin is put in charge of shifting everything, and whisking the eggs and milk and vinegar together, which is probably for the best because she’s not the world’s best baker. But Holtzmann seems to be made for it.  She literally dances through the kitchen, Let’s Go Crazy blasting through the speakers at volumes high enough to make Erin’s ears bleed, but she lets herself get caught up in the infectious delight that seems to ooze from Holtzmann’s every inch.

Erin’s never really considered Holtzmann to be an artist, before. She has the eccentric air that artists often tend to carry, it’s true, but an artist? She was too immersed into her science to be an artist. But now, as Erin watches her move through the kitchen like it’s her own, tiny slice of heaven, she starts changing her mind. Every tiny part of this cake is treated with an expert care, and Holtzmann breathes life into it with each movement. By the time the cake, now portioned into exact amounts into four round pans, is slid into the oven, Erin feels like she just watched a painting be finished.

The whir of the mixer, coaxing the cream cheese into fluffy peaks, is forgotten beside her, and something in her chest gives a little _tug_ , a little _catch_ , when Holtzmann dances over, head bobbing in time to Prince. Her apron is dusted with flour and spattered with red cake batter, but that’s not what Erin notices.

Instead, she notices the movement of Holtzmann’s hips, the way her nose scrunches as she smiles, the way she reaches for Erin’s hands, grasping them tightly, pulling her into the dance. And Erin really isn’t much of a dancer, she’s always too nervous, to worried about what others think about her dancing, but right now, it’s just her and Holtzmann in the kitchen, and she dances.

-

The cakes turn out perfectly. Holtzmann presses a fingertip gently to the center of one, and when it springs back she declares them done. They’re left to cool for about fifteen minutes, then with a quick, easy efficiency clearly born form doing this countless times, Holtzmann has them out of the pans and sliced in half. She plops them on a turntable, pulls the bowl of frosting towards her, gives it a quick stir with a long, flat metal spatula, and gets to work.

She makes it look so easy, Erin notices. Smooth, flowing movements as she spreads and smooths and piles frosting across the cake. Holtzmann makes it look like it’s the easiest thing in the world, even though Erin knows that in her hands, the cake would probably look like something a preschooler decorated. But, when she’s done, it’s marvelous. Smooth and creamy white, red crumbs patted up the sides and top artfully messy in a way that’s clearly purposeful.

“Abby’s going to love it,” Erin says, and Holtzmann grins, clearly proud of herself, and glances over to the other bench. There are dishes piled high on sheet pans, and Erin cringes. They probably should have been done while the cakes were being baked, but Holtzmann had unearthed two spatulas at least two and a half feet long, and challenged Erin to a duel. It had been gloriously goofy, Erin laughing the entire time, and Holtzmann making lightsaber noises while she danced around Erin.

“Dishes can wait,” Holtz says, and, beaming, whips something out from behind her back. It’s a cupcake, a bit misshapen because it had clearly only been baked in the paper cup and not in the mold. “There was a bit of batter left,” Holtz explains, scraping some leftover frosting from the bowl and into the top of the cupcake. “So I dumped it into this so we could taste. You know, to make sure it’s not poisoned.”

“Smart,” Erin says, watching as Holtzmann breaks the cupcake in half. She takes her half, sliding down the fridge to sit cross legged on the floor. Holtzmann follows her, and Erin tries not to notice how they’re sitting close enough that their shoulders, their hips, their thighs are touching. Each little piece of contact sends a spark through Erin’s blood, and she shifts a little, trying to ignore it.

“Cheers,” Holtzmann says, and they knock their cupcake halves together.

Erin takes a bite. It’s delicious, of course it is. Moist and tender and tasting subtly of chocolate, the little swoop of frosting carrying both the sweetness of white chocolate and mild, pleasant tang of cream cheese. She takes small, careful bites, wanting to savor, while Holtzmann scarfs her half down like she’s starving. She licks a little fleck of frosting off her lip, and Erin’s eyes are drawn to the barest flick of pink tongue. She feels her cheeks heating and she doesn’t know why.

Erin finishes her cupcake half, but she doesn’t get up. She stays there, sitting against the fridge next to Holtzmann. Her jeans are dusted with flour and her hoodie has a smear of frosting across it and there’s a blob of cream cheese on her shoe, and she finds herself focusing on those tiny details to try and take her mind of the physical proximity to Holtzmann.

It isn’t working. It especially isn’t working when Holtzmann makes a little sound of contentment and slides down the refrigerator, jamming her face into Erin’s arm. Unsure of what to do, Erin pats Holtzmann shoulder, and Holtzmann makes another little sound. It’s almost unbearably cute.

“Do you think I could get you to do the dishes?” she asks, and Erin laughs, giving her a little shove.

“You’re helping, and you’re not weaseling out of it.”

“Awwright,” Holtzmann drawls, and slides down Erin’s arm so her head is in Erin’s lap. Erin freezes, holding her hands awkwardly a few inches above Holtzmann, unsure if it would be better to touch or not to. Holtzmann blinks up at her, eyes bright and _blue_ , and Erin’s heart stutters.

“Hey, Erin?”

“Yeah?” Erin chokes on the word, swallowing hard. Holtzmann is looking at her with a strange intensity, and there’s something warm growing in her stomach.

“You’re so cute it’s getting distracting.” She reaches up and bops Erin’s nose gently. “Please stop being cute.”

Erin is sure that her face is a bright, tomato red, and Holtzmann sits up, using Erin’s thighs to prop herself up. “See, like that. That’s adorable. And being this adorable is stopping me from doing the dishes?”

“You’re adorable too,” Erin says, but her voice comes out at a weird pitch. She clears her throat, and squeaks as Holtzmann scoots up and backward, so she’s practically sitting in Erin’s lap. They’re so close, noses practically touching, and Holtzmann is smirking in a way that makes Erin’s stomach jump in a not-so-unpleasant way.

“You think I’m adorable?” She says the words in way that Erin can only describe as a _purr_ , and desire curls in Erin’s belly; molten chocolate, hot and sweet and heavy.

“I do,” Erin says, and Holtzmann is so, so close. “I think…” she swallows, building up courage, and the words fall from her tongue. “I think you’re hot.”

And they’re kissing. Holtzmann’s lips are hot and searching and burning against Erin’s, and it’s like her world is narrowing to lips and skin and _heat_. Almost unconsciously, she slides a hand up, barely under the hem of Holtzmann’s shirt, hand resting against the smooth skin of her stomach. Holtzmann gives a tiny gasp against Erin’s lips, and Erin grips _tighter_.

Holtzmann pulls back, just a tiny amount, breathes words against Erin’s lips. “Are you okay? Is this okay?”

Erin nods eagerly, quickly. “God, yes.”

And they’re kissing again.

She is lost, lost in touch and sensation and _skin_ , and this kiss is not gentle. It’s not soft and hesitant, like she might have expected it to be. This is lips and tongue and _teeth_ , two girls desperately searching and finding and _taking_. This is the dig of fingernails and the ache of a bite and the gasp of _wanting_ , and Erin is everything and nothing and all at once, because Holtzmann’s lips at on hers and her hands are in her hair and she’s kneeling between Erin’s legs. When they pull apart, Erin gasps like she’s been holding her breath for the entire time, and her heart feels like it’s trying to pound out of her chest.

Holtzmann’s hair is even more wild then normal and her eyes are _dark_ and her chest is heaving, and she smiles, all teeth and tongue and seductive tilt to her head.

“Dishes can wait?”

“Dishes can wait,” Erin agrees.

It’s needless to say, but the dishes sit in the sink for a long time.

-

Abby loves the cake. They sit in their dorm, Abby and Erin one bed, Patty and Holtzmann on the other, plates of cake balanced on their laps. Holtzman is currently fighting Patty for the last of the cake on her plate, even though there’s still a good half of the cake on the desk. Abby digs an elbow into Erin’s side, and when Erin looks over at her, she finds Abby looking at her suspiciously.

“What?”

“You’re all flushed,” Abby says, an accusing tone in her voice. She pokes Erin’s cheek, eyes narrowing.

“It’s hot in here,” Erin stammers, somewhat lamely, and Abby raises an eyebrow.

“And it has nothing to do with a certain person currently trying to stab Patty with her fork?”

“No!” Erin blurts out, too fast to play it off, and Abby grins triumphantly.

“Okay, fine, _maybe_. Abby, don’t look at me like that, we only kissed. Once. A couple of times. A lot of times. But it was all last night so it counts as one kiss, doesn’t it?”

Abby’s smile is getting more and more smug with the longer Erin babbles. Erin sighs, recognizing the look.

“Just say it, Abby.”

“I CALLED IT!” Abby crows, punching her fist in the air. “Oh my god, Erin, this is the best birthday present ever.”

“Called what?” Patty asks from the bed opposite them. Holtzmann is currently trying to get her in a headlock with one arm and steal her cake with the other, and it’s not working out too well, because Patty looks totally unconcerned.

“Abby and Holtzmann finally got over themselves,” Abby says, and Patty’s eyes widen.

“Really? Damn! Took you two long enough!”

Erin resists the urge to hide her face in her hands. She instead settles for not meeting anyone’s eyes and feigning a very intense interest in her cake. Holtzmann, on the other hand, grins and bows. She gives up on stealing Patty’s cake and hops over to the bed Erin and Abby are sitting on, flopping down between the two of them. Abby shifts to the side, lifting her plate so Holtzmann won’t knock it over.

Holtzmann curls around Erin like a cat, stretching up to kiss her cheek. “It did, didn’t it?” She asks, smiling up at Erin.

Erin smiles back, lets the cream and honey warmth fill her chest, comforting and soft and perfect.

-

They’re sitting on a lawn in the sunshine when it happens. It’s still a freezing, winter sort of sunshine, both of them bundled up in coats and hats and gloves, and they huddle together on a blanket. But still, it’s sunshine, and after weeks of rain and sleet, students are piling outside. The weather hasn’t quite realized that it’s March, yet, and that you should be able to be outside without feeling like you’re about to get frostbite.

Holtzmann is lounging in Erin’s lap, fiddling with a circuit board Erin is like ninety-nine percent sure was never supposed to be removed from Dr. Gorin’s lab, and Erin has a textbook propped open against Holtzmann’s stomach, chewing on the end of a highlighter.

It takes her a moment to notice. Her focus right now is narrowed to the numbers on the page in front of her and the warm, heavy weight of Holtzmann sprawled across her. But something makes her look up. It’s Professor Miller, standing at the edge of the lawn and staring at them. There’s something in the way she’s looking at them that makes Erin squirm, and when she starts across the lawn towards them, Erin stiffens.

Holtzmann twists to look at Erin. “Er? Is something wrong?”

“Professor Miller!” Erin blurts, and Holtzmann looks confused until Professor Miller stiffly replies.

“Ms. Gilbert,” she says, looking down her nose at Erin, and Erin curls her fingers tighter around her textbook.

“I was just studying!” She says, holding up the book. “Not for your class, though. Not that I haven’t been studying for your class! I’ve been studying a lot for your class!”

Professor Miller makes a disinterest hmm, and Erin falls silent. She suddenly feels uncomfortably warm, despite the icy weather. Holtzmann rolls over onto her back and sits up, propping herself on her elbows, torso still draped over Erin’s crossed legs.

Professor Miller’s expression gets even more pinched. “Ms. Gilbert, do you really think that this is appropriate?”

For a minute, Erin thinks she means the studying, or the sitting outside in the cold, but then she notices the way Holtzmann freezes, expression going icy. She notices the way Professor Miller’s eyes narrow and flick from Holtzmann to Erin, the edges of her lip curling.

Oh.

And Erin suddenly feels so, so small. She is thirteen years old again, huddled in the shadows of a school building, a hand hastily dropped, lips still tingling, skin still set alight.

Which is why she does what she does next. She forces out a laugh. “Oh! You…you think we’re _girlfriends_?” Holtzmann’s body gets rigid. “Ha…” she says weakly, and Professor Miller stares down at them. Finally, she makes another _hmm_ , and leaves.

Holtzmann rolls off Erin. Erin reaches for her.

“Wait, Holtz…”

Holtzmann isn’t meeting her eyes. She gathers her stuff up in her arms, moving quickly and stiffly.

“No, I get it, Erin,” she says, shoving stuff into her bag. “It was a one-time thing. We made out. It’s not like we haven’t left each other’s side the last week. It’s not like you kissed me this morning when you saw me. It’s not like we held hands the entire walk over here.”

She’s already halfway across the lawn by the time Erin’s on her feet.

“Holtzmann, wait! Please!” Erin takes off after her, abandoning her books and blankets on the grass. “Holtzmann!”

But the blonde is already gone.

-

“What the _fuck_ , Erin? Why the _hell_ would you do that?”

Erin drops her head into her hands, groaning. Abby’s anger is a force to be reckoned with, and right now all of it is being directed at Erin.

“I don’t know!” Erin says into her hands. “I panicked!”

“That’s no excuse!”

“I know.” Erin looks up miserably. “I feel awful, Abby! Every time I think about it I want to throw up.”

Abby tries to continue looking furious for another couple of seconds, but then the expression drops and she huffs out a breath. She sits carefully down next to Erin on her bed, and reaches out to awkwardly pat a shoulder, like she unsure if she should be doing it or not.

“You need to talk to her, Erin.”

“I know.”

“I have no idea what you should say to her, but you need to talk to her.”

“That’s massively helpful,” Erin grumbles, and lets her head fall against her knees again.

“Look, Erin, you need to go and talk to her as soon as possible, because the longer you wait, the worse this will be.”

Abby’s right, of course she’s right, because Abby is always right, and Erin sits up. “You’re right. But she’s working right now, and I don’t think-“

“Erin, you’ll just keep coming up with excuses if you don’t go and talk to her as soon as possible. I know how you work.”

“But-“

“Erin.”

Erin sighs. “Okay. I’m just going to put actual pants on first, okay?” She pulls at the fabric of her ratty, ancient pajamas. She climbs off her dorm bed, temples throbbing from the stress headache that had rapidly formed after the disaster that morning. Abby watches as Erin shuffles around the room, finally pulling on a jacket. She hesitates, fingers on the door handle, and turns back to Abby.

Abby sighs, “You should know I’m still _totally_ furious at you…”

“Of course.”

“But Erin? Good luck. Explain whatever your most likely _extremely_ flawed reasoning was to pretending you’re not dating.”

“Thanks,” Erin whispers. She takes a deep breath, and slips out the door.

-

It’s easier than Erin thought to get into the kitchen. A deep, dark part of her had secretly been hoping that the door would be locked, or that she wouldn’t even get as far as the door before being stopped, but it swings open easily, admitting her to the kitchen. A few of the bakers give her curious glances, but no one stops her. And there’s Holtzmann, standing in front of a mixture against the back wall, one hip braced up against it. She sees Erin coming, and her face grows tight, the smile on her lips forced and cold.

“Erin,” she says coolly. She tosses handful of butter pieces into the mixer, where a lump of bread dough is circling around and around, the hook attachment rotating in a way that makes Erin feel slightly dizzy to watch.

“Holtz,” Erin starts, then stops, unsure of how to go forward. Holtzmann leans more of her weight against the mixer, raising an eyebrow. The bread dough thuds against the side, the mixer jolting with each impact.

 _Thud. Thud. Thud_.

Erin curls her hands into fists, clutching at the fabric of her skirt, in an attempt to hide their trembling. She doesn’t think it works.

“Holtzmann,” she starts again, stops, then plows forward, “I’m so, so sorry. I promise what happened this morning had absolutely nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me.”

“I never would have guessed,” Holtzmann says, sarcasm lacing every word. Erin flinches. Holtzmann throws more butter into the mixer with more force than is probably strictly necessary. She’s not meeting Erin’s eyes, not that Erin blames her.

“I’m not going to try to excuse it,” Erin says, twisting her fingers together. She stares at the dough, letting it blur into a pale lump, going around and around and around. “But I just really want you to know how sorry I am, and how awful I feel, and it’s totally fine if you don’t want to see me anymore, and I really wouldn’t blame you, but I really just needed you to know how sorry I am.”

Holtzmann is silent for a moment, dropping butter into the mixer bowl. Finally, she looks up, and for the first time Erin notices the smudge of flour across a cheek. “I want you to tell me why.”

“What?” Erin says, confused. Holtzmann crosses her arms, holding butter-smeared hands away from her body.

“I want to tell me _why_ ,” she says again. She’s still leaning against the mixer, body moving with every soft _thud_. “Why you would react like that.”

There’s a fist closing behind her ribcage, the all-too-familiar sensation of panic crawling its way up her throat. Because suddenly she’s fifteen again and someone’s yelling and she can’t breathe, can’t draw in a full breath, and everyone is staring and she wants to run, energy arching through her veins, fight-or-flight instinct kicking in and she _can’t_ -

“Erin?”

Erin grasps Holtzmann’s voice, uses it to pull herself up for air, lungs inflating once again. Holtz is looking at her in concern, hand hovering above Erin’s elbow, as if she’s unsure if it’s okay to touch or not. Erin takes a few, ragged breaths, building up her courage.

“When I was fifteen,” she starts, pauses, continues. “I was found kissing Amelia Meyer behind school.” There are feelings, long-dormant, rising in her chest, and she hasn’t talked about this with anyone since Abby, and combined with the events of the last few hours, it’s a toxic cocktail of anxiety and guilt and the residual feeling of absolute _smallness_ that comes whenever she thinks of her first kiss. She knows it shouldn’t be like this, that most people look on the memories of their first kiss with fondness at the very least, but growing up in a small, homophobic town, being caught by bullies who immedietly went and told everyone, being put back in therapy for months…

Erin finds herself crying, and everything is suddenly spilling from her lips, and she’s apologizing, and Holtzmann is just standing there, and finally, quietly asks,

“Erin, are you not…are you not out, yet?”

“Not officially?” Erin says, wiping her eyes. Everyone else in the kitchen is trying their very hardest to pretend that nothing in this corner is happening. “I mean, Abby knows, but Abby knows everything, and it’s not like I told her.”

Holtzmann is silent again, finally saying, “I didn’t know.”

“Would it have made a difference, you knowing?”

“Of course, Erin!” Holtzmann shakes her head. “There’s a _huge_ difference between denying that someone is your girlfriend because you find it embarrassing, and denying you have a girlfriend because you’re closeted and being confronted by a homophobic professor.”

They’re silent again. Erin wipes more tears off her face. Holtzmann throws more butter into the mixer.

 _Thud. Thud. Thud_.

“I get off work in an hour,” Holtzmann offers, looking up at Erin. “Patty’s not going to be in our room until later tonight, d’you want to come back with me? And talk?”

Erin smiles, a bit watery, a bit shaky, but still, a smile. “That sounds great.”

Holtzmann bites her lip. “And Er? I’m sorry, too. I should have stuck around to hear your side of things.” She hesitates for a moment, then reaches out and pulls Erin into a hug. Erin grips her back, equally tight, closing her eyes.

“I got butter on your coat.”

“I don’t care.”

-

They do go back to Holtzmann’s dorm. And they talk. They talk a _lot_. And it’s exhausting and emotional but it’s good, too, lasting late into the night, and they fall asleep on Holtzmann’s deeply uncomfortable dorm bed.

Erin is woken by the sound of a door being flung open and a shouted “AH HA!” She jolts, flailing, and suddenly there’s not a bed beneath her anymore and she hits the ground with a groan, dragging the blanket with her. Holtz, from her spot on the bed, pops up, hair a mess of wild tangles in her face, squinting in the bright light coming in from the windows.

Abby and Patty are standing in the doorway, both looking way too cheerful for it being this early in the morning. Abby reaches down to haul Erin upright, and Patty plops down on her own bed, grinning. Erin crawls back up onto Holtzmann’s bed, who groans and buries her face into Erin’s shoulder.

“Soooo,” Patty says, patting the space next to her on the bed for Abby to sit down. “We went to bakery to try and find you, figuring you’d be there, but there was no sign of you.”

“It wasn’t a total bust, though,” Abby breaks in, “We did eat eclairs for breakfast. Eight-year-old Abby would be so proud.”

“What?” Erin looks around, squinting for the clock. “What time is it?”

“Ten,” Abby says, and Erin groans, dropping back into the pillows. Holtzmann follows her, splayed across Erin’s stomach like a starfish. Patty looks at them in interest.

“I’d assume from all…well…this,” she says, making a gesture at the two of them, “That you worked it out?”

“Yeah,” Erin says, smiling down at the blonde. Holtzmann smiles back up at her, reaching up and entwining her fingers with Erin’s. “We did.”

-

A few weeks later, they go and plant themselves in front of Professor Miller’s office door and make out. She is less than thrilled.

-

The quarter, and, therefor, the year draws to a close, which leads to Erin sitting in the bakery after her last final. Holtzmann is off work and has claimed one of the couches in the corner of the bakery, spread across the entire thing with a small pile of sugar cookies balanced on her stomach.

“Erin, you can relax,” she says, biting the head off a cookie elephant. “Finals are OVER, and we have an entire summer to not study. It’s going to be fantastic.”

“I’m not studying,” Erin says, taking an offered cookie. “I’m actually looking at apartments.” She nibbles at the edge of the tiger’s ear. It’s delicious, of course it is; the cookie lightly flavored with vanilla and the tiniest hint of nutmeg, the royal icing crisp and carrying the faintest whisper of citrus.

Holtzmann sits up, the cookies falling into her lap. “What?”

Erin glances up from the papers spread out in front of her. “Abby and I were talking the other day, and while neither of us are doing summer quarter, we both have jobs here. And I have no desire to move back in with my parents for the summer, and Abby’s parents are barely going to be home the entire summer, anyways, so we thought…why not stay here?”

Holtzmann scoops her cookies into her palm and is off the couch and peering over Erin’s shoulder. “Which ones do you like?”

Erin groans. “None of them.” She spreads out the fliers across the table, scooting aside as Holtzmann is suddenly taking up half her chair. “The ones we like are too expensive, and the ones we can afford look like they’ve been doubling as dumpsters.” She sighs, looking down at a photo of her and Abby’s favorite apartment, the pretty one only a couple of blocks off campus.

Holtzmann is quiet for a few seconds, before slowly saying, “Y’know, Patty has been complaining a lot lately about how awful the dorms are, and has been dropping a couple of hints about moving. Maybe if all four of us found a place, we could afford a nicer one?”

Erin twists in her seat. “Are you serious?”

Holtz nods. “I mean, I know we’ve only been dating a couple of months, but…”

“Holtz, that’s a fantastic idea!” Erin’s mind is already churning. “I’d have to talk to Abby first, and Patty, of course, but she loves you guys and we already spend almost all our free time together anyways…”

Holtz smiles, tipping her head. “Is that a maybe?”

Erin kisses her in response.

-

Abby and Patty are still unpacking, loudly singing along to something on the radio, and Erin thinks that they’re both mildly drunk. But they’re in another room, and Erin is flat on her back on her bed, staring up at the white ceiling. She’s tired, she’s really, really tired: she got up way too early that morning and it’s late at night. She yawns, jaw popping.

There’s the soft sound of footsteps against the floor, then a weight settles down on the bed next to her. Holtzmann curls up against Erin like a cat.

“My bed was too far away,” she says in explication, and Erin decides not to point out that it’s barely five feet away.

“Whatcha doing?” She asks. Her hair tickles Erin’s cheek.

“Nothing really. Just tired.”

Holtzmann nods; Erin can feel the movement against her shoulder. She smells like the bakery; like cake batter and bread dough and chocolate, and it’s a warm, comforting smell.

“So,” Holtzmann says, “Now that we’ve just fulfilled the number one lesbian tradition- high-five to U-Haul for sponsoring this life event – is there anything you want to talk about?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know…childhood secrets? Thoughts and plans and dreams for the future? Lifelong goals?”

Erin lies flat on her back on her bed, staring at the plain white ceiling, her girlfriend squished against her side, and she thinks of her and Abby’s baby, hidden away in Abby’s top dresser drawer. It’s ready, it’s been ready for almost a year, but Erin hasn’t let Abby start querying publishers yet. It’s scary, too scary, because she was already teased enough in school, and the name Ghost Girl has haunted her longer than any actual ghost ever has. But…this is Holtzmann next to her, wild, wonderful Holtzmann, and if anyone would understand, if anyone would believe that what Erin and Abby had spent hours and hours and hours researching and writing is real, it would be Holtzmann.

Erin hesitates. “Do you…do you believe in ghosts?”

Holtzmann’s smile lights up the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At school, we call red velvet cake Murder Cake. Both because it’s guaranteed you’re going to stain the bench, your skin, and your uniform blood red if you even look at the batter, and because it is #$%^&* awful to frost (like, I can feel myself tensing up just thinking about it. ALL THE FREAKING RED CRUMBS EVERYWHERE), and by the time you’re done you probably want to murder someone. Also, have we had lightsaber fights with the spatulas before? 
> 
> Yes. (don’t tell Chef).
> 
> Professor Miller maaaaay be based off the asshole professor who told a friend of mine that it was inappropriate for her and her girlfriend to hold hands while studying on the lawn on campus. And yes, they actually did go and make out in front of the professor’s office. They’re pretty awesome.   
> And although this note is getting way to long, the title may be a play on words. “Knocking” is the term used to describe adding butter to brioche dough.


	6. Salty, Savory, Sour, Sweet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Six: Salty Parabolas

Holtzmann isn’t sure what she’s doing, really. Yes, she has been flirting with Erin pretty much nonstop since she walked into the lab, maybe an hour ago, and yes, Erin’s super pretty (really, really pretty). But she’s also the woman who walked out on Abby however many years ago, and Holtzmann tries to remember that.

She shouldn’t be this fascinated with the woman who broke her best friend’s (her only friend’s) heart. And yet. There’s just something so fascinating about the way Erin glares and mutters and blushes as Holtzmann flirts, and it delights Holtzmann to no end. Abby notices, of course she does, and she looks confused but not hurt, and when Holtzmann asks the silent question, eyebrows raised, Abby shrugs in a gesture that clearly means _go for it_.

After all, neither of them think anything will come out of it. They’ll wander the halls of this wonderfully creepy old mansion and maybe pick up a couple of readings and hopefully a wisp or two of something that hints of _once alive_ , and then Erin will be back at her job and get her _tenure_ and it’ll be like nothing ever happened, and Erin never showed up at their lab at all.

So she fishes her little tube of forgotten Pringles from her bag and crunches her way through them as they wander, the can shoved in her armpit and a camera in her hands. And she flirts with Erin relentlessly, teases her about her shoes and adorably tiny bow-tie and just generally follows her around, talking the entire time.

But then there’s a ghost, a real, actual ghost, blue and shining and beautiful, and Holtzmann’s ears are popping and Abby’s snatched a camera and Holtzmann is desperate to do something, anything, and so she shoves a Pringle into her mouth because it’s all she can do.

“How are you _eating_ right now?” Erin demands, glancing from the ghost to Holtzmann and back to the ghost, and the words pop from Holtzmann’s mouth before she can stop them.

“You try saying no to these salty parabolas,” she quips, and this time when Erin glances back, there’s the tiniest of smiles on her lips and Holtzmann grins back.

Then they try to make contact and there’s _a lot_ of ectoplasm and they all go charging from the house, whooping, and the tube of Pringles falls from Holtzmann’s hand because she’s charging out the door after Erin and Abby, because holy shit they just saw a _ghost_.

Abby and Erin are laughing and jumping and hugging, and Holtzmann punches the air because that was awesome, and Erin’s dripping green goo and _laughing_ , and Holtzmann tilts her head, because suddenly she sees that Erin is not the uptight professor she first thought, and this is a glimmer of the Erin Abby always talked but, but Holtzmann privately thought was a romanticization. But this…this is the glimmer, the hinting of the Erin she had talked about.

Later, after Erin has taken a cab to her apartment and Holtzmann and Abby have gotten in their own, still high off the experience, Holtzmann turns to Abby.

“Do you think she’ll come back?”

“What?” Abby’s already morphing into _researcher mode_ , a crease of concentration between her eyebrows as she furiously jots down notes in her untidy scrawl.

“Erin. Do you think she’ll come back?”

Abby looks up. Her glasses have slid down her nose, some, and she peers over the frames at Holtzmann.

“Why?”

Holtzmann shrugs, one shoulder going up, down. She’s not really sure why she’s asking, either. Abby hesitates, the end of the pen tapping against the notebook, before slowly saying, “I’m not sure.”

Holtzmann turns away to peer out the window, propping her chin on her closed fist. “I hope she does.”

-

Holtzmann rolls her shoulders, grimacing at the ache between them. She drops the screwdriver on her workbench and straightens up, twisting as she works the stiffness from her back. She blinks, hard, trying to clear the fuzziness of intense concentration from her vision to peer at the face of her watch. She blinks, again, this time in surprise, because has it really been _eight hours_? She slides her glasses up her nose to rub at her eyes, and she’s suddenly aware of how much they’re burning, and how it feels like her stomach is trying to eat itself.

There’s the soft sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, which confuses Holtzmann for a second, because everyone else should have left hours ago; it’s getting so late now that it can almost be considered morning. But then Erin rounds the corner, and she’s got a bowl cupped in her hands, and it whatever is in it smells wonderful, and Holtzmann’s stomach growls.

“I heard the crashing stop,” Erin says by way of explanation, passing Holtzmann the bowl of soup. Holtzmann forgoes the spoon and chooses to sip directly from the edge of the bowl, leaning back as best she can on her stool. The soup is one of Abby’s; she makes it in mass quantities and stores it in individual portions in the freezer. Erin must have stolen one of the ones Abby keeps stashed at the firehouse.

Erin perches on the edge of the desk, watching as Holtzmann sips. “What’re you working on?” She asks, and Holtzmann lowers the bowl.

“Proton sword,” she says, reaching out to pat the long, circular handle.

Erin’s eyebrows furrow. “That doesn’t sound very…safe.”

“Maybe not,” Holtzmann says cheerfully, “But it’s going to be _extremely_ fun.”

She spins her stool around so she can lean back against her desk, dipping the spoon into the tomato soup. “Why’d you stay so late?” she asks, and Erin shrugs.

“Someone needed to make sure you actually ate.”

“I would have eaten,” Holtzmann says, mock-offended. “You didn’t have to stay.”

“I wanted to,” Erin says, and then she closes her mouth really quickly, cheeks turning a bit pink. Holtzmann tilts her head, smiling. Interesting. She bites down on the spoon as she plops the now-empty bowl on her workbench, spinning around to face her (hopefully) finished proton sword.

“I know it’s late and all, but I’m going to test this baby out.”

“And that’s my que to leave,” Erin says, sliding off the end of the desk. “I’d rather not you melt my eyebrows off.”

“ONCE! I did that once. And it was only like, half an eyebrow.”

“Either way.” Erin smiles at Holtzmann for a second, and there’s a little flutter in her stomach. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” Erin’s almost at the stairs when Holtzmann calls out, “Hey, Erin?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for the soup!”

“Of course.”

“It was pho-nomenal.”

“Oh my god.”

“What, you’re not a fan of my soup-erb puns?”

“Holtz…”

“Do they broth-er you? Do you not think that they’re soup-er?”

“HOLTZMANN.”

“I mean, I’d wouldn’t put stock on it, but I’d say they’re making you pretty salty…”

“I swear to god, Holtzmann, one more and I will straight-up murder you.”

-

It’s Abby and Erin’s first book signing, and both of them are extremely nervous. They’re broadcasting their nerves in very different ways.

Abby is feverously signing her way through the pile of books that the booksellers have given them to be sold as presigned copies, an intense, almost aggressive expression on her face that Holtzmann knows comes from her throwing herself into whatever she’s doing in an attempt to forget that she’s nervous. Erin, on the other hand, is turning paler with every minute that ticks past, and has already gotten up to pee three times in the last hour, even though she’s not drinking any water.

A bookseller pokes his head in the door.

“Ten minutes,” he says, and Erin’s starting to turn a little green.

Patty’s leaning against the wall, paging through a newly bought non-fiction. She straightens up, looking at Erin in concern.

“Erin? You okay, baby? You’re looking a little gray.”

“I’m fine,” Erin squeaks out, and Holtzmann can tell she’s really not. This is proven when Erin hops up and all but runs from the room. Abby starts to push herself out of her chair, but Holtzmann pops up from where she’s sitting on the table with the snacks.

“I’ll go talk to her,” she says, and when Abby opens her mouth to protest, shakes her head. “Keep signing. I’ll be back.”

She slips out the side door into the little hallway between the bookstore and the room, and finds Erin sitting against the wall, staring blankly at the floor. Holtzmann plops down beside her, offering a crinkling plastic bag.

“Watermelon?” She asks, brandishing the bag of sour candies stolen from the snack basket in the room.

Erin smiles and takes one, but the expression is forced and she just holds the candy in her hand, not moving to eat it. Holtzmann props her elbows up on her knees, shoveling a handful of candies into her own mouth. They sit in silence for a minute or two, before Erin says slowly, “I don’t know what idea I find more awful. Going out to find that the bookstore is empty, or that it’s full of people who think we’re frauds.”

“Empty bookstore,” Holtzmann says immedietly, “Because those people who think you are frauds bought your book in order to get a ticket to this thing, and boom! Sales.”

Erin smiles again this time, and it’s a little more genuine. “That’s true.”

“Besides,” Holtzmann says, bumping Erin’s shoulder gently with her own, “We have fans, Erin. Actual fans. The room isn’t going to empty. I mean, you guys made the New York Times Bestseller list.” She stands up, using the top of Erin’s head as a prop, spins around and offers a hand. “Come on, Er. We’ll be with you, in the back, cheering.”

This time, Erin gives a true, full smile, allowing the engineer to haul her upright. “Please don’t actually cheer. This is a bookstore.”

Holtzmann slings an arm around Erin’s shoulders, shoving the crinkling candy bag into the pocket of her jacket. “I’m totally cheering. Partly for you, and partly for the horrified look on Patty’s face.”

-

The room is not empty, nor is it full of hecklers who think that the Ghostbusters are frauds. In fact, it’s mostly a crowd of people of all ages who hang on Abby and Erin’s every word. Not that Holtzmann blames them; they’re funny and intelligent and, after a few minutes of stiffness, appear at ease. And so Holtzmann and Patty sit in the back and listen.

And Holtzmann, at least, watches. She watches the way Erin makes the little gestures with her hands and the way she tips her head when she smiles or laughs and the way she looks so, so happy to be here and the way she thanks everyone who asks questions and the way she keeps turning to Abby with an expression of happy disbelief on her face. It’s adorable and endearing, and Holtzmann smiles as she watches her. At one point, Patty gently digs an elbow into Holtz’s ribs.

“Baby, you’re staring.”

“Whaaat? Me?” Holtzmann says, as innocently as possible. Patty just raises an eyebrow.

“You’ve got some serious heart-eyes goin’ on.”

“What? Pfft, no,” Holtzmann says, although she’s sure she’s blushing, can feel the heat rising up her face, which is strange because Holtzmann doesn’t blush, doesn’t get embarrassed about something like this, no, she goes on and plays it up until Abby and Patty and Erin are the ones blushing. And so she opens her mouth to say something, and as she does so she meets Erin’s eyes from across the room, and Erin _smiles_ , and there’s a wild beast trapped in Holtzmann’s ribcage and she closes her mouth. And, god, she’s blushing, and she feels the need to hide that she’s blushing, so she shovels a handful of sour candy into her mouth and smiles at Patty with her mouth open and Patty rolls her eyes and knocks her hip against Holtz’s.

After the talk, Patty takes the chance to wander further into the bookstore, and Holtzmann parks herself on one of the abandoned chairs as people line up to get their books signed. A few people talk to her as the line snakes it’s way back towards her, most people don’t; she receives many, many shy looks, and she grins at everyone. But, slowly, the line peters out, and Abby and Erin appear beside her, both looking absolutely exhausted.

Holtzmann tilts her head. “You have sharpie on your chin.”

Erin rubs her at face with a hand also smudged with silver streaks of sharpie. “I thought the pen was capped and tapped it against my chin at one point.”

“Smooth,” Abby snorts, and Erin mock-glares, even as she all but collapses against her friend. Abby huffs and makes a show of propping Erin up, as Erin puts on a show like her legs don’t work.

They start to make their way towards the front of the store, thanking the booksellers as they go, Patty joining when they pass by her chatting to one of the lingering readers. She hurries to catch up with them, wrapping an arm around Erin and Abby each.

“I don’t know about y’all,” she says, “but I am _starving_.”

Abby frowns and says “But it’s ten thirty at night though,” at the same time Erin pretty much shouts “YES.”

Patty shrugs. “We’ll go to one of those late-night delis Holtzy likes. Or Zhu’s, if y’all are fine waiting for your food until New Year.”

Erin nods enthusiastically. “It feels like my stomach has been trying to digest itself for the last hour.” She spies the bag of candy poking out of the pocket of Holtzmann’s jacket and reaches over, plucking it out. Holtzmann protests, but only slightly, and Abby, on Patty’s other side, gives Holtzmann a Look. Holtzmann doesn’t know what it means, only that it makes her feel like she might blush again, so she says,

“Excellent plan, Patricia.” She fumbles in her pockets for a second before pulling out the keys, twirling them around on her finger. “I’ll drive!”

“Nope!” Abby snatches them from her hand. “You’re still banned after nearly killing us last week.”

“Hey, I didn’t even go off the bridge. I just…kind of scraped along the side a little bit.”

Her argument didn’t work, but she does end up in the backseat next to Erin, so she doesn’t mind that much. Erin yawns and leans her head against Holtz’s shoulder.

“Hey, Holtz?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for talking to me. Earlier, I mean.”

“Of course,” Holtzmann says, and she knows that both Patty and Abby are watching in the rearview mirror, but she’s trying to pretend like she doesn’t notice. “Any time.”

-

The storm hits New York suddenly and violently, and what was originally supposed to be only wind and rain turns into _freezing_ wind and _freezing_ rain, and then into snow, and, naturally, the day it dumps enough snow to cover what feels like the entire US in a layer, the power in the Firehouse flickers, stutters, and dies, plunging them all into darkness.

They have generators, of course; Holtzmann has three up on the roof, doing their thing, but all of their power is being focused onto her more _temperamental_ babies, and therefor making sure that all the ghosts don’t come busting out of the containment unit, or they all die in a fiery explosion. Which is how she finds herself on the roof, in Abby’s coat and Patty’s sweater and Erin’s hat and fleece-lined pants, because she is not one to actually buy winter clothes. She’d went out and bought a generator earlier that day, not having the spare few hours to pull together the parts to build a new one from scratch, let alone build it, and now she’s trying to soup it up and connect it to the Frankenstein that is the other three. Which is why she’s currently sitting in the snow, literally freezing her butt off, while the tips of her fingers turn numb from cold and snow gets in her eyes.

She’s so in the zone, though, that she doesn’t notice someone standing behind her until Erin clears her throat. Holtzmann turns, and Erin is staring down at her. She’s in the hugest, puffiest coat that Holtzmann has ever seen, mittens, a scarf pulled around her face and both a hat and her hood on. And she has a mug in her hand.

“Hey,” she says, kneeling down next to Holtz. “I brought you some hot chocolate.”

Holtzmann takes the mug and moans as the warmth seeps into the cubes of ice that used to be her hands.

“I made it the way you like it, too,” Erin says as Holtzmann raises the mug to her lips. “Two packets of the mix plus a squirt of chocolate syrup, using half n half instead of milk or water, chocolate chips on the bottom of the mug, and both whipped cream and marshmallows.”

“You’re amazing,” Holtzmann says, taking a long sip. “It’s perfect.”

 _You’re perfect_ , she thinks, but she doesn’t say that out loud.

“I don’t know how you can drink that. It has enough sugar in it to give an elephant a heart attack.”

“But that’s what makes it so good, Er-Bear!”

Erin smiles. Or, at least, Holtzmann thinks Erin smiles; it’s hard to tell behind the scarf. But she’s doing that adorable nose-scrunching thing and Holtzmann _can’t stand it_ , because she’s had a crush on Erin for _ages_ , and hey, there’s like a 61% chance of the generators dying and the containment unit failing and spewing ghosts out across the city, so what’s too loose?

“Hey, Erin?”

Erin’s already up and heading back towards the door, but she turns when Holtzmann calls. The snow obscures her from view, giving her a hazy appearance even though they’re only a few yards apart. “Yeah?”

“When I’m done with this,” Holtzmann says, gesturing at the parts scattered in the snow around her, “Would you maybe like to go and get dinner? Alone? Together? Alone together?”

Erin pauses. “Holtz…are you asking me on a date?”

“Maaaaybe?” She clutches the mug of hot chocolate to her chest, praying that the half-hidden expression on Erin’s face isn’t disgust.

But, instead, the nose-scrunching things happens again, and Erin shoves her hands in her pockets. “Yeah, okay.”

“Okay?” Holtzmann grins. “Erin, did you just agree to a date?”

“Yes,” Erin says, laughing. “I did. Took you long enough.” Upon seeing the expression on Holtzmann’s face, Erin hurriedly adds, “If you fist pump this is off!”

Holtzmann totally still fist pumps. But they still go on the date.

(and it goes _fantastically_ ).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I did another food thing. BUT I CAN’T HELP IT. I’m in training to be a pastry chef. Food is what I know. Also, I’m not enough of a science person to do anything with the whole parabolas part of the prompt, so I snatched the fact that the quote was about Pringles and went with it.
> 
> Also! I'm being dragged camping for the weekend (Yay. Camping.), and so I won't be around tomorrow, but the always lovely Seti-fan will be posting the final chapter for me. I do not want to go camping. I doubly do not want to go camping now because it means I won't be around for the final day. So I'll say a day early that this week was super fun and I loved reading all of your guy's stuff and I can't wait for next year, and all that fun stuff.


	7. I Knew You Before You Ever Knew Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holtzbert Week Day 7 - Professor (freeform)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seti here. Didn't write anything about this chapter. Just posting it on Aine's behalf while she's out of town. You're in for a great read! Enjoy and give Aine some love for when she gets back!

The book isn’t what she’s looking for, originally. She’s looking for the pop rocks that Abby insists she didn’t hide from Holtz but _totally did_ , and Abby had drawn the short straw for who had to sub for the physics class. Which means that Holtzmann has the lab to herself for the next hour. So she takes the opportunity to turn the entire lab upside down. Yes, she could just go out and buy more, but blue raspberry pop rocks are her favorite, and she’s sure that they’re the ones that pop the loudest, and they’re always the ones that are gone whenever she goes to the store.

So no, she’s not looking for the book. But she finds it.

They have little hidden corners all over the lab, mostly full of snacks that would probably give them radiation poisoning if they ate them and loose change and ones and fives in case they order takeout and neither of them have their wallets and spares of Holtzmann’s favorite tools. But, instead, she finds a fake bottom in a drawer of Abby’s desk, and she doesn’t find candy. Instead, she reaches in and she pulls out a book.

It’s an absolute brick of a book, easily five hundred pages, and Holtzmann leans backwards, weighing it in her hand. Ghosts from Our Past is emblazoned on the cover over what looks like a stock photo for “galaxy”, and Holtzmann isn’t surprised to see the name Abigail L. Yates underneath the title.

But it’s not just one name. It’s two.

Holtzmann flips the book over in her hands. And there’s Abby on the back cover, but there’s also another woman, sporting the world’s most unfortunate hairstyle and a serious expression. Holtzmann blinks in surprise, flipping the book back over to peer at the second name. Erin Gilbert.

Erin Gilbert.

Holtzmann tucks the name away in her mind for future reference and, candy forgotten, plops down on the nearest stool and begins to read.

And…well, it’s brilliant. She expected it to be, of course, because this is Abby she’s talking about, and Abby is brilliant, unquestionably so…but there’s a different voice here, too. Holtzmann knows Abby’s voice, knows it almost as well as her own after working side by side with her for almost three years, after writing article after rejected article for publications together. So it must be Erin Gilbert’s, whoever she is, and she finds herself intrigued, because this mystery woman in the author photo with Abby is brilliant, too.

And Holtzmann wants to know who she is.

So that’s why she’s waiting in front of the door the second Abby comes in. Abby jumps, nearly dropping the stack of papers in her arms.

“Jesus, Holtzmann! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Abby drops the papers on the table with a thud and turns, glaring, to the engineer. Then, the color drains from her face. She snatches the book from Holtzmann’s hands and clutches it close to her chest.

“Why were you going through my stuff?” She demands, and Holtzmann blinks, startled, at the anger in Abby’s voice.

“I was looking for my candy! But, Abby, why did you never tell me you wrote a book?”

Abby softens a little bit, probably at the hurt on her best friend’s face. She makes a little sound, looking away from Holtzmann. “It…it’s not relevant. And it’s out of print, anyways.”

Holtzmann is not to be deterred. She follows Abby across the lab, dodging the cluttered tables with a practiced ease. “But Abby! A book! A five-hundred-page book! And you have a coauthor? Who is this Erin Gilbert and why I have I never heard of her?”

“Four hundred and sixty.”

“What?”

“Four hundred and sixty pages,” Abby says, finally turning around to face Holtzmann. “And…Erin and I…we don’t talk anymore.”

“Why?” Holtzmann asks, again, and something behind Abby’s expression slams shut.

“It was a long time ago,” she snaps, and she tucks the book carefully into her bag. “It has nothing to do with our work here, or with you.”

“But-!”

“Holtzmann,” Abby says sharply, the tone of her voice clearly saying _drop it_. So Holtzmann does.

At least for a while.

-

The next time the topic of the book comes up, it’s almost a year later, and they’ve just spent one long week at the Chelsea Hotel, with nothing to show for it. They’re both exhausted and kind of drunk, which is probably dangerous considering they’re camped out in their lab, but whatever. It’s not like the lab is up to safety code, anyways.

Abby has been prattling on for the last half an hour about how _unscientific_ the ghosts in her newest TV show are, and Holtzmann is only half paying attention, because she’s spotted the corner of a familiar book poking out from under a pile of other books.

“Abby!” She says, and pulls Ghosts from Our Past towards her, sending the stack of books falling. She ignores this and instead flips the book open, thumbing through the pages.

“No,” Abby says, reaching weakly for Holtzmann. “Put that back.”

“Why? It’s so _good_!” Holtzmann says, rising the book up for emphasis. She gasps, as an idea occurs to her. “You should _republish it_ , Abby! Amazon has all the self-publishing shit on their website, and you could republish this and become rich and famous and win _awards_.”

“I can’t.” Abby slumps back down, taking a long pull from the glass in her hand. “Not without Erin.”

Holtzmann’s hands still on the pages. They crinkle pleasantly beneath her fingertips, and she forces her hands to relax before she wrinkles the pages. She may like her books well-loved, but Abby will just about kill her if she dares to even dog-ear a page.

“Who was Erin?” Holtzmann asks, carefully. She’s not sure what she’s expecting; probably not a sister…a research partner, maybe? But there’s background there, a background that clearly hurts…so maybe a research partner who died, or…

Holtzmann lights up. “Ex-girlfriend?” She gasps in delight, and Abby glares over the lip of her cup.

“No!” She snaps, then hesitates. “Well…”

Holtzmann scoots closer, using her feet to pull her closer to Abby. She plops her chin down on her knees. “Spill.”

“I mean, we did try doing the dating thing for a couple of weeks in college, because I mean, we loved each other, but as you know, I’m- “

“Aroace,” Holtzmann supplies, helpfully, and Abby nods. “Yeah. And we were better off as friends, anyways.”

“So,” Holtzmann pushes, gently, “Who was she?”

And maybe it’s because they’re both a little drunk or maybe because it was a long, boring week or maybe it’s because she’s been dying to tell the story since Holtzmann first found the book _ages_ ago, everything comes tumbling from Abby’s lips. And Holtzmann eats up each word.

Abby eventually finishes, and sighs. “She abandoned me, Holtz. She abandoned our baby. You don’t abandon a _baby_. Not before it learns to fly.”

Holtzmann shuffles over to her best friend, knocks their shoulders together. “Hey. She may have abandoned you, but I won’t. You’re pretty awesome, Abs.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Abby says, laughing a little bit. She leans her head against Holtzmann’s shoulder, and Holtzmann can feel her sigh.

“Y’know, Abby,” Holtzmann says, and Abby makes a little _mhm_ in her throat, “Erin pretty much gave up all claim on this book when she left. And, if you wanted to…you could put it back up.”

“I don’t know,” Abby says, “I just…I don’t.”

They’re silent once again.

-

Abby does decide to put the book back up for sale. eBook and hard copy and she even pays a few hundred dollars to rent out the world’s crappiest recording studio to record herself reading the book so she can put it up on books on tape. Her first sale is to Holtzmann, who buys a copy in all three formats the day Abby releases them. She leaves glowing five-star reviews on every possible place she can.

They had talked about Abby taking Erin’s name off the cover, and taking a new author picture so she’s no longer on the back, either, but she had decided against it. Because, as much as Abby might not want to admit it, she tells Holtzmann later, it’s still Erin’s baby, too, even if she’s trying to pretend that it and Abby don’t exist.

They both figure it will be fine. After all, it’s not like Erin’s going to be _searching_ for a book she thought went out of print over a decade ago.

-

There’s just something about it. Holtzmann doesn’t know what it is, but there’s something about Erin Gilbert that is wiggling under her skin.

Because, god, this woman’s _brain_. She did numbers for Ghosts from our Past that even Holtzmann wouldn’t have even _considered_ , and she writes crispy and intelligently, and Holtzmann finds herself falling in love with Erin Gilbert’s brain.

She feels like she’s betraying Abby as she does, but she needs to know more about this ex-best friend, about the mysterious figure that was so prominent in Abby’s life for so many years. And so, with guilt curdling in her stomach, she does what she does best: She Googles.

And she digs _deep_. She finds out that Dr. Erin Gilbert has a doctorate in theoretical particle physics, went to college at University of Michigan and to grad school at Princeton, has written for several well-known publications and is considered an asset to modern physics. None of this comes as a surprise. But what does come as a surprise is that Dr. Erin Gilbert, the woman who appears to have been doing her very best to avoid Abby, lives in New York.

That discovery causes Holtzmann to lean back in her chair and blink at her computer screen. She works at Colombia, barely twenty minutes away from where Holtzmann now sits, at the back of the lab at Higgins. Hell, she’s close enough that if Holtzmann wanted to meet her, she could. The thought makes Holtzmann hesitate, and she glances up, tapping a pen against her teeth, at where Abby’s bent over another computer screen. Abby happens to look at up at the same time, and she gives Holtzmann a funny look.

“Are you okay? You look weird.”

“All’s well and dandy, Abbaroo,” Holtzmann says as cheerfully as she can. “Just ate something funny, that’s all.”

The excuse is apparently good enough for Abby, because she returns to whatever she’s doing, and Holtzmann returns her own attention back to her own computer.

Colombia. Huh.

-

It doesn’t take much to figure out Erin’s lecture schedule. A call to the office, Holtzmann playing her best befuddled new student panicking over scheduling. It probably helps that fall quarter has only been going for a week or two, but Holtzmann makes sure that she seems extra confused just in case. She also does her very best German accent, but that’s more for fun, and less because she has to.

But she ends up with a list of times written on a neon green sticky note, and Wednesday plans.

She tells Abby she has to leave work early to get to an appointment, which she isn’t entirely sure that Abby believes, but it doesn’t really matter, because there’s absolutely no way that Abby could guess what she’s about to do.

In order to do it, though, she needs to blend in, which is why is finds herself wearing (barf) _jeans and a hoodie_ , with a backpack slung over her shoulder. She even tames her hair into a more subdued version of its normal wild quiff and leaves her goggles behind at her apartment. Her roommates can’t stop staring as she leaves, not that she blames him. She doesn’t look herself, at all.

She’s still wearing her necklace, though. _That’s_ not coming off.

So yeah, she may not look herself, but she blends in with the students, and, armed with the knowledge stolen from a well-meaning receptionist, she slips into a lecture hall with the rest of the students. She gets a couple of curious looks, but she sits right in the middle of the hall and pulls out her laptop as if she’s going to take notes and acts like she’s right exactly where she’s supposed to be, so people just shrug and continue with what they were doing.

And then, she comes in, and Holtzmann makes a little sound in the back of her throat.

She looks exactly the same as she did on the back cover but with an admittedly better (if unexciting) haircut. Holtzmann does have to admit she’s cute in a nerdy, kind of awkward professor way, all tweed and skirt suits. She seems a bit scattered as she comes in, rambles a little bit about the weather and laughs awkwardly a couple of times, but then, she uncaps a whiteboard marker, and starts to talk.

And Holtzmann is enraptured. Because she is every bit as brilliant in person as she is in writing. She talks with a sure confidence, and Holtzmann can’t stop listening, because god, this is _amazing_ , and she gets, now, why Erin and Abby were best friends. Because they both get like this when they talk about what they love; like they have the entire world at their fingertips and are so, so excited to share.

The hour and a half is over before Holtzmann knows it, and it’s like she’s coming out of a daze, blinking her eyes in an attempt to clear the haze of science from her mind. She’s grinning like a manic, and there’s more than one student looking at her weirdly. She doesn’t care. Because that was _amazing_.

For a split second, she considers going after Erin. Introducing herself. Explaining why she’s here, and how she’s Abby’s lab partner and how she found the book and how she’s being falling in love with Erin’s genius mind for a while now.

But, then she remembers Abby, and she knows she can’t. She instead, she gathers her things, and leaves the hall, and leaves the campus, and she knows she can’t tell Abby about this, because Abby would be absolutely _furious_ , and the wrath of Abigail Yates is something Holtzmann wants to avoid at all costs.

She hopes, though. A small, secret, guilty part of her _hopes_.

Because Holtzmann really, really wants to see Dr. Erin Gilbert again.

And, hey, maybe one day she will.

 


End file.
